The storyline in "Monster Mayhem" is pretty straightforward. Nay, strike that, it is actually rather generic, without much of any in-depth character development or exploration. It was essentially just a 'human versus extraterrestrial monster' type of movie, without anything being explained to the audience. Sure, it made for a watchable enough viewing experience, but you don't have to be actively involved in anything here. Just disconnect your brain, lean back and look at the action on the screen. Whether or not any characters dies hardly matters, because you don't really know the characters anyway.
The acting in "Monster Mayhem" was good for a movie of this type. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble at all, which I find refreshing, as there is no association to previously portrayed characters at all. I have to say that the Momo character, the young teenager, was just insanely annoying, but a fair representation of the selfish attitude of the youth today and their addiction to being online on social medias 24/7.
The dialogue in "Monster Mayhem", as written by Wang Qiyao, was pretty cringeworthy. I don't think people actually talk that way in real life. Could be a problem with the translation from Mandarin to English in the subtitles, of course.
You have to go halfway through the movie before you start to get to see the monster, but only as a prolonged glimpse. And that formula might have worked well in the 1980s horror movies and creature features, but not so much today. The audience wants to see the creatures in the movies, not just get random glimpses in scenes so dark that you can hardly see what is going on. And "Monster Mayhem" was definitely suffering because of this prolonged wait before seeing the creature, and I have to admit that the air was starting to quickly seep from the balloon at that point, because sitting through nearly 40 minutes of virtually nothing happening doesn't make for a great movie viewing experience. You have to wait 46 minutes before you get to see the creature in its full somewhat horribly CGI rendered glory.
The problem with the CGI rendered creature in "Monster Mayhem" was that it didn't really look natural. Sure, the creature design was interesting and had some adequate texturing to it. But the creature just never felt like it was actually on the screen with the actors and actresses, because it felt and looked a lot like it was pasted into the scenes digitally. Which, of course, it was, but it was just lacking that natural blend with the rest of the environment around it, thus making it stand out like a sore thumb.
You don't ever feel that the characters in the storyline were in any real danger, despite of having an extraterrestrial reptilian creature stalking and killing them. So it was a bit difficult to get into the mood that director Hero Chen and writer Wang Qiyao were trying to set with this 2017 movie.
"Monster Mayhem" came and went without leaving a lasting impression, and it is definitely not a movie that has enough contents to its script and storyline to support more than a single viewing. In fact, the first viewing was strained enough, as it was, for contents.
This movie is not really a movie that I would recommend to fans of the creature feature genre, because "Monster Mayhem" offers very little of what its title otherwise suggests.
My rating of "Monster Mayhem" lands on a four out of ten stars.
