Monsters of War

Chrissie Wunna is the worst actress I have ever seen. Horrible. Seriously, she is the worst.

Sadly, the acting in this film is High School film class quality. The lead actress has fake eyelashes long enough to dust furniture and the poor kids are smiling at times when they're supposed to be terrified.

After an earthquake (?) a woman taking her kids to Grandma's house stops along the side of the road and hears loud scratching noises on the roof. ANYONE with even a lick of sense would drive off, instead, her and the kids get out and see a monster on the roof. Then instead of jumping back into the car where it's safe they run away with all the quickness of a sloth. They come across two guys covered in blood that tell them there's monsters nearby and that they came from a cave. They hear growling noises coming from inside the cave and what do they do? They run into the cave. The woman and kids then run to a house with a front door that couldn't stay closed against a slight breeze let alone monsters. There's a motley crew of people inside including a nun with a bad accent and changing complexion, and 4 others. The CGI isn't super bad but the writing, the terrible acting and bad plot lines (people do stuff that no one would ever do) just distract from everything so much that it's unwatchable. Nobody in this movie is afraid, there's T-Rex, giant spiders and other monsters running around and nobody shows even a hint of terror. Even though a couple of the actors give it a valiant effort, it's just terrible directing. Not worth seeing this one.

I think that says it all.

You'll understand if you watch this movie.

It's a monster movie. Bunch of weird monsters.

The opening family is really weird. All through the movie, you'll be thinking that they were really robots, or something to explain their weirdness and stiffness.

But it never happens.

In its defense, I'll say that it certainly looks like some very important information was CUT. Maybe more was filmed, maybe more was scheduled to be filmed. It wouldn't take much to add for some coherent story line or character line.

Mostly, the military angle looked like something was cut. The two surviving soldiers who join the isolated group have weapons that never work. That is possibly what is missing from the story. Were they given decrepit weapons on purpose by humans, or was there a supernatural reason? Nothing is indicated either way. Was there a scene cut from the movie to explain this? The woman playing the military leader gets top billing, even though the family is center stage, so I'm inclined to believe there was initially more to the script.

Until that is added on to the movie, I have to grade it on its merits as is. So, here goes:

We learn many lessons. The people in the military are given weapons that don't function. And eventually the ones who survive learn to just toss those weapons away.

We learn that if a beast is about to eat you, to stand and talk and don't run away or drive away for a good 15 seconds. This is to ensure that the slower beasts don't get their meal, and you get to feed faster beasts who will breed faster beasts.

Many such lessons.

The motivations for the characters? Well, some are motivated, and some are just kind of "lets just have this character do this thing here". Notably a stereotypical religious nut and the family from the beginning.

I'll be lax on the rating, because I do believe the panic in panic situations. That's the only thing going for this movie. People not acting calm and cool when huge dangerous beasts are maiming and tearing their bodies apart.

But it total?

I think it can all be summed up with:

Huh?

I like low budget movies, I understand the CGI might not be great or the story might not be original, but what made me quit this movie was the acting, it was horrible. Sorry Mr. Director, but you need better actors.

Monsters of War is producer Scott Jeffrey's third attempt at a group of unappealing, unattractive people trapped in a house stalked by dinosaurs/monsters horror film. I'm pretty sure this is the same hotel as in Dinosaur Hotel. The other film Hatched was in a pretty country house. The star here is the same actress from Dinosaur Hotel and she has the same two annoying kids as in that movie. They must be her real children as they can't act. None of the adults in this should really be in the acting profession either, it features some other faces from Dinosaur Hotel. The Eastern European nun is especially bad at acting plus her character is nasty- homely, mean, condescending and delusion. You'll be longing for her death and the death of every other character here.

Apparently there's a war going on involving monsters though there's no big battles or chaos in the cities. The attacks by the "Monsters of War" are pretty sparse. I think we get more screen time of a super annoying asthma attack. We also get a long crying scene and a look for the lost child part which is pointless as it doesn't end in finding the child's half-eaten remains. All of this is to add unnecessary drama to go along with the endless dialogue inside the hotel. How about some drama of the people being relentlessly assaulted by the "Monsters of War?" Instead our ears are assaulted with endless boring dialogue that is hard to make out due to the accents.

The lone redeeming thing about Monsters of War is the monsters themselves. Sure the CG isn't great but it's not really that bad. There's a decent variety here- two T-Rex's, a snake like monster, a dragon and another neat insectoid/reptoid type creature. There's a mention of a raptor that never appears. The monster attacks are somewhat bloody. At one point the director thinks he's clever doing one of those cliché circle around a group of people while they talk sequences. The only problem is you can hear the cameraman's footsteps during the entire sequence. Genius! There was also some brief but nice scenery of the English countryside. I've seen some fun films produced by Scott Jeffrey like Cupid and Don't Speak, Monsters of War is not one of them.