Girl vs. Monster

Of course I had never heard about this 2012 movie titled "Girl vs. Monster", as I happened to stumble upon it by random chance here in 2024. And believing that it was a horror comedy, of course I opted to watch it. Yeah, I didn't know that it was a Disney family movie. And had I known that, I might have skipped on the movie entirely.

Writers Annie DeYoung and Ron McGee put together a script and storyline that appealed to quite a different audience than what I am in. So I didn't particularly enjoy this movie, to be honest. Not that it was a bad movie, I guess, but I just wasn't the target audience of the movie.

While I wasn't familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, I will say that the acting performances were good, despite of the storyline failing to entertain me. And truth be told, I do enjoy watching unfamiliar talents on the screen.

Visually then "Girl vs. Monster" was nothing outstanding. Sure, there were special effects, and they were up to par with what you would expect from a TV movie or a Disney TV movie, I suppose. So that counts for something.

My rating of Stuart Gillard's 2012 movie "Girl vs. Monster" lands on a four out of ten stars. This just simply wasn't my cup of tea.

The kindest thing you could say about this mess is that the budget was too low so they had to take shortcuts.

Unfortunately if you read the credits you will see that this is a 100% Disney Channel product, so you had one of the greatest and most powerful corporations on the planet behind this film, so you can't merely blame the budget.

You can however blame some overpaid Disney exec blueskying with his team, saying something like "Halloween is upcoming and everyone knows we OWN that franchise but ever since High School Musical, we also have a musical franchise, so let's kill two birds with one stone and do both at the same time. Now, where do we go for lunch today?" This kind of thinking led to the creation of the SPORK.

Nothing is right here -- the writing, the acting, the special effects, the excessive use of colored smoke, easily one of the worst Disney productions of all time.

Skylar Lewis (Olivia Holt) comes from a family of monster hunters and she doesn't know it. Her parents keeps her home for Halloween but she decides to cut the power to the home alarm. The problem is that power is also cut from the containment vessel and various monsters are released. Family friend Cobb reveals the family secret. With her scared friends Henry and Sadie, she must recapture Deimata who intends to possess her.

This Disney movie is a showcase for some of its young stars and is aimed for their young fans. It's inferior in many ways. The writing, the adult actors, the special effects, and the plotting are all second rate in one way or another. Mostly, this relies on the movie's young stars. Olivia Holt is definitely a beauty although she may be better off playing the mean girl. Kerris Dorsey plays the best friend and she may have better dorky innocence to accentuate the leading role. Why not have the mean girl and the sweet girl team up to defeat the monsters? The plot doesn't really make any sense. I don't know why she would go to the party except that it needs to manufacture the situation. It does have the central premise about fear which is very appealing. One must grade on a curve for these kinds of movies.

This came out when I was 10 and I loved it so much, I am going to go re-watch it asap just for some memories of childhood. I would recommend this title to anyone who had children that are into defeating monsters or who are excited by futuristic devices, as this will fulfill their imagination as it definitely did to me. I loved this movie!

The Magic Kingdom came up short with this made for TV movie designed to showcase the talents of Olivia Holt and Luke Benward. Girl vs. Monster if you're over the age of 12 will have you laughing in all the wrong places.

Not that Benward and Holt are bad, in fact they make this somewhat tolerable. Their best moments are in the musical interludes. There should have been more of them.

Young Olivia typical teen with strict parents wants to go to a Halloween Party real bad, but she's got a curfew. The parents have reason to worry about her though. Unbeknownst to their daughter, they're professional monster hunters with equipment that the Ghostbusters got rid of of in a garage sale. When some monsters get loose on Halloween that's when Olivia discovers her roots.

Now maybe if the folks who made Ghostbusters did this one it might have been a whole lot better. Girl vs. Monster is not the best product out of the Magic Kingdom.