Monster

I don't hate the idea of a film having no dialog. Monster is as simple as a concept as it gets, and realistically, dialog wouldn't be a major aspect of the story anyway. No, the biggest flaw with Monster isn't the LACK of sound, it's the EXCESS of sound.

I just saw Challengers and that was a movie where sound design and mixing were a major aspect of what made it great. This is an example of a movie where the sound design is truly awful. It was a droning, crackling score that initially had me wondering if my TV speakers were broken. (Thankfully, no...I moved to another TV to finish the movie and it was the same situation)

This droning score plays through the ENTIRETY of the movie and it's unbelievably annoying. Not to forget about the score, which is so melodramatic and intrusive that it veers into very corny territory. Music is so important because it can set or ruin a film's tone. Here, the over dramatic music and over use of a terrible score made this film feel cheaper than it needed to. The last time sound made me feel so negatively about a movie was probably Tenet.

As for non-auditory aspects, I think it's fair to warn people that Monster is a very dark movie that follows two children as they attempt to escape a child murderer. Given that...I do wish we did get SOME dialog. It's such a disturbing premise that some levity and humanity on screen would be welcome. Some explanation as to what's going on? What the larger story is here? Or even some of the motivations of the admittedly detestable adults we see in the film would add a layer of intrigue here aside from the relatively compact story we see on screen.

I generally like to support foreign films and go a bit easier on them, but I think Monster needed some tweaking to actually work. As of now, it's a forgettable and undercooked film.

I am a fan of the idea of having a film use no dialogue. (Characters only sometimes say the names of other characters, so at least the main actors are more likely to get fairly compensated as speaking parts.) I don't mind the campy fake blood as long as there is suspense and a good storyline. Cinematography definitely had good moments of creating suspense. Only twice in the film did I find myself in a moment that seemed laughable and took me out of my immersion. One was a "The Shinning" spoof of the "Here's Johnny" scene that played out impressively well, especially by a young child actress in the place of Duvall, but even in its abbreviated form, the scene is just too long to not be a bit dull and out-of-place. The other moment was when our main character stops herself from stealing some french-fries left behind by an antagonist and pouts. I can see how they intended to make this a moment of showing human-ness and generating pity for the child, but it instead came off as an out-of-place moment of levity. I can forgive those things however. The thing that really irked me was the stereotypes used to depict the "badguy" archtype; Joint-smoking, beer-drinking gamer playing violent MMO shooters late into the night, has long unkempt hair and a black baseball cap or hoody with open jacket and ripped jeans, sustaining on cup noodle and fast food, neglecting an otherwise gorgeous home that is taken for granted and absolutely infested with cockroaches. And let's not forget this is supposed to be a child predator. It's just hitting every checkmark for a bad stereotype. When we got our second villain in the story, things started to pick up with suspense.

It's no spoiler that this film doesn't contain any dialogue -- or maybe it is, but one that is given by Netflix themselves right from the onset. Not knowing this would have given the film more tension, something that this Indonesian made for television movie is sadly lacking.

No cliche is left untouched here. Repetitive scenes abound (the heroine hides under the bed, behind a door, in a cupboard, and this time and again). There is no surprising twist (oops, was that another spoiler?). There are no intricate plotlines to be unraveled. No attempt is made to give the capturer and his partner personality; the house with its bland interior doesn't even look like it's their own.

In conclusion, despite its rating this is essentially a children's movie, in both senses of the word, and childish at that. Would have been more effective when shortened to, let's say, twenty minutes.

Okay, that is a tiny bit unfair, but given that most of their mainstream horror output is from legendary copy/paster Rocky Soraya, I feel like it's an appropriate joke. Monster is an Indonesian adaptation of The Boy Behind the Door, though with everything applied in a way that doesn't work quite as well when put together..... The visuals are the only good part, with some great shots and an overall suspense building aesthetic focusing on close and tight shots. There are even some well bits of swivel work that are done more than well enough, and the practicals have some satisfactory blood and violence to them. The killer doesn't really have any menace, but I feel like that's more in the overall acting and writing..... Speaking of which, the writing is one of the more lacking elements. While the lack of dialogue is a good choice, the story is very formulaic, with no actual surprises and no attempt at originality. There's very little to the characters too. No real substance to speak of..... The soundtrack feels out of tune. There's this odd western tune that always takes the viewer out of the scene, as well as some composed bits that are never timed right and never properly fit. While the sound effects work well enough, there isn't enough effort placed on them for sinister and/or unsettling effects..... The acting isn't great. The two kids, played by Anantya Kirana and Sultan Hamonangan do as good as they can, but their facial expressions are limited to either mild terror or high levels of fear, while the other two just go through their motions. The antagonists aren't exactly spooky or creepy, they're just annoying.

If you want to find out for yourself, Monster is on Netflix. If you want to save time and effort, just watch The Boy Behind the Door.

"Monster" is an okay movie, I guess. Wait, on second thought, it's not that great. It starts out as a rather unpleasant watch. Then after while, it gets repetitious. It never gets boring but it does get stuck in second gear. The first half of the movie is better than the second half. The no dialogue is fine for a while but then it ends up being a silly, rather ineffective gimmick. For a movie with a very friendly running time (86 minutes), "Monster" begins to feel like a long movie. 86 minutes long or not, it should have been about twenty minutes shorter. "Monster" is another straight-to-Netflix dud.