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Monster

  • Video
  • 2008
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 26m
IMDb RATING
2.0/10
1.6K
YOUR RATING
Monster (2008)
Its Wasn't An Earthquake.
Play trailer1:18
1 Video
5 Photos
ActionAdventureHorrorSci-FiThriller

After a massive earthquake in Tokyo, two American filmmakers document the true cause of the destruction.After a massive earthquake in Tokyo, two American filmmakers document the true cause of the destruction.After a massive earthquake in Tokyo, two American filmmakers document the true cause of the destruction.

  • Director
    • Eric Forsberg
  • Writers
    • Eric Forsberg
    • David Michael Latt
  • Stars
    • Erin Evans
    • Sarah Lynch
    • Sarah Lieving
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    2.0/10
    1.6K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Eric Forsberg
    • Writers
      • Eric Forsberg
      • David Michael Latt
    • Stars
      • Erin Evans
      • Sarah Lynch
      • Sarah Lieving
    • 58User reviews
    • 18Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer #1
    Trailer 1:18
    Trailer #1

    Photos4

    View Poster
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    Top cast19

    Edit
    Erin Evans
    • Erin Lynch
    Sarah Lynch
    • Sarah
    Sarah Lieving
    Sarah Lieving
    • Sarah Lynch
    Erin Sullivan
    • Erin
    Justin L. Jones
    • Justin
    Kazayuki Okada
    • Mizuchi
    Kazuyuki Okada
    • Mizuchi
    Yoshi Ando
    • Hiro
    Jennifer Kim
    Jennifer Kim
    • Aiko
    Hiroshi Ueha
    • Japanese Grandfather
    Akira Sato
    • Isao
    Kosei Seki
    • News Crew
    Jason Williams
    Jason Williams
    • Soldier #1
    Robert Chu
    • Soldier #2
    Shin Shimizu
    Shin Shimizu
    • Japanese Reporter
    • (as Shinichiro Shimizu)
    Chad Nell
    • American Reporter
    Yosuke Hosoi
    • Cameraman
    Yoshi Ando
    • Mire
    • Director
      • Eric Forsberg
    • Writers
      • Eric Forsberg
      • David Michael Latt
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews58

    2.01.5K
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    10

    Featured reviews

    2gulchu

    Garbage

    It starts out OK and has a decent premise to it. But after about the first 15 minutes it turns into a complete waste of time and do not waste your time by watching this.
    1sexytail

    Laborious

    You've probably all figured out by now that this is the straight-to-video knock-off of the much anticipated "Cloverfield". I was pretty curious about this, partly because it comes from The Asylum (their stuff is just addictively bad!) and because the trailer for it looked nearly competent. So naturally I rented it as soon as I had the chance.

    The plot (ha!) concerns two women, a documentary crew, who fly to Tokyo to interview an official about global warming. Everything in the movie is filmed vacation-video style from the girls' hand-held camera (just like "Cloverfield"). During the interview the monster attacks and the city becomes a disaster area. Our heroes are forced to run for cover and try to find people who speak English while still documenting the monster's rampage.

    I expected weak CGI effects and bad dialogue, but I was also disappointed to find that the hand-held camera wasn't hand-held looking at all (the making-of feature on the DVD betrayed their real techniques) and the down-time that fills out most of the movie happens in spots that look more like L.A. than Tokyo. Transitions are accomplished with unconvincing video distortion, an attempt to sell us on the gimmick that we are watching found footage. There's an attempt at explanation for the monster too, which was perhaps the worst aspect of this mess.

    "Monster" may be The Asylum's worst. In spite of a good trailer, this will be forgotten especially because they chose a title already used for a Charlize Theron movie. "Cloverfield" has nothing to fear from this.
    1geraldjones1959

    Film Making's Nadir

    Giving "Monster" a one star "awful" rating is wayyyyy too high. Without question this is the worst film I have ever seen. The tone was set with the first 5 minutes when the office of the Japanese Minister was smaller than my closet and the exact same sound effect was used 4 times outside the Ministry of the Interior Building.

    The camera work was MUCH worse than Cloverfield and Blair Witch, mostly because even when stationery the objects on the screen were a conglomeration of the floor, the speakers legs, her breasts and mindless panning of the walls.

    The plot was utter aimless with dialog to match - the inane banter was devoid of emotion and at the "scariest" moments the two wooden actresses sounded like Ben Stein lecturing on the economy! There wandering around the destroyed city was pointless to the story and lines like "it looks like it's going to be a beautiful morning" while overlooking the fake destruction made one want to throw a shoe at the TV screen.

    The best way to describe this "movie" is Pointless waste of film! Another "Cloverfield" did not need to be made and this was a poor attempt at it anyway!

    SOMEONE PLEASE!!!! TAKE THEIR CAMERA AWAY!
    2Cel_Stacker

    Something else...

    Sisters Sarah and Erin hop the bigger pond, landing in Tokyo to film a documentary about global warming (though God knows why). In the midst of their interview with the Environmental Minister, havoc strikes. At first, it's assumed to be another earthquake. When military presence intensifies, terrorism is suspected. But all too soon, it's revealed to be...something else. Sounds a bit familiar, no? Just to get it out of the way, whether or not it's an unhappy accident of conflicting release dates, there's no getting around that this is "Cloverfield"-lite, with a few (very few) deviations. This is evident--from the distant explosion that marks the start of the action, to the overall concept, to splattering the camera with blood at least once. The monsters even roar as if they were separated at birth. To be fair, this film does have a few things on Cloverfield. The fish-out-of-water angle, namely placing the protagonists in an unfamiliar culture, was a great idea. It's difficult enough to survive disaster when most everyone speaks your language, but when they don't, the challenge is increased quite a bit. While the presentation of the global warming message is..."crunchy" at best, the not-so-subtle hint that global warming itself awakened the creature is another juicy notion. Honestly, there's no better place on earth to set your disaster than Tokyo, the world's capital of disasters! The biggest thing for me personally would have to be the logic of the beast itself. In this film, it seemed to cut its paths of destruction through heavily populated areas, as I believe an angry beast would, rather than conveniently following four scrawny twenty-somethings around, and even directly snacking on one of them, as New York's monster did.

    Now that that's out of the way, even if Cloverfield never existed, this would still be pretty poor. The creature, a giant squid presumably, isn't actually seen doing very much to constitute a threat. Perhaps it could have actually picked up someone or smashed something, but all we're treated to is many angles of large, waving tentacles. One thing it makes you appreciate is how difficult disaster is to write. It seems that it's very easy to get so wrapped up in the turmoil of your story that you forget how people actually talk, particularly in the midst of emergency. Sarah and Erin (their actual first names, by the way; a bright-and-shining sign of non-actors) appear to struggle on the initiative to keep many of David Michael Latt's throw-away lines out of the production, but enough of them sneak in to become distracting. "I feel like we were meant to be here...", "It's so important to document this..." Sure. I realize they would have to invent reasons for our heroines to lug around an industrial-grade camera, but there must have been another way. Call me shallow, but I believe I'd find it difficult to think of what progeny will see someday when flaming debris is exploding all around me, and the street is caving in underneath my feet.

    An additional note about the cast--in truth, considering the script, there's really no reason to have anyone American in it. The Japanese actors (and their characters) are FAR better than the American ones; particularly the high-schooler who lives with her half-crazed dad (and dad seems to know something of the angry creature) and the young doctor who just wants to get across town and make sure his son is okay. I wished the film were about THEM, or someone like them. Were I in Erik Estenberg and company's shoes, I'm sure I would have shot the entire thing with an entirely Japanese cast and subtitles. Couldn't the Japanese document their own disasters? They've had lots of practice.

    So, maybe it's not so much a ripoff as it is just not good. Of course, consider that trailer for another Asylum treat, "AVH". As in, "Alien Vs. Hunter". As in intergalactic hunters with advanced camouflage fighting slimy aliens with elongated heads and teeth. Can't wait for that one, can ya? What? You've seen it? Of course you have...
    1song_of_rainbow

    To bad there is no zero rating.

    I saw this movie, while looking for something to watch. I saw "monster" and Japan. Having been a fan of Japanese monster movies way before the average American had even been born. I thought what can possibly go wrong, after all they were so bad that there were good fun: 1) the two "actresses"; 2) a great example of the term "the Ugly American". An "ancient" book by the title, about how rude, impolite, and self absorbed, Americans could be while abroad. Add to that how ridiculous those two women were: "we have permission to film", really? Regular people who didn't want to be filmed. Didn't wait to see the monster.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Mockbuster of Cloverfield (2008).
    • Goofs
      The movie is set in the month of January. Within the movie, they walk around as though it is hot outside. This would not be the case as the average January temperature in Tokyo is approximately 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius).
    • Quotes

      Sarah Lynch: So were down-town Tokyo, we just went through an earthquake magnitude 7.8. The earthquake happened a little north of the city. I don't know, we're just running.

      Erin Lynch: Sarah, what are you doing, we have to get out of here.

      Sarah Lynch: We're doing the story.

      Erin Lynch: The story. Sarah I'm sorry, the story is over.

      Sarah Lynch: The earthquake is the story, we have to document this.

    • Crazy credits
      The events, characters, and firms depicted in this photoplay are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. [Or is it? You be the judge.]
    • Connections
      Referenced in DVD/Lazerdisc/VHS collection 2016 (2016)

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • January 18, 2008 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official site
      • The Global Asylum Inc. homepage for film.
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Монстр
    • Filming locations
      • Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production company
      • The Asylum
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $500,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 26 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby SR
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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