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The Monster

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Canada · 2016
1h 31m
Director Bryan Bertino
Starring Zoe Kazan, Ella Ballentine, Aaron Douglas, Christine Ebadi
Genre Drama, Horror

A divorced mother and her headstrong daughter must make an emergency road trip to see the girl’s father. Driving through deserted country roads on a stormy night, they get into an accident that leaves their car dead. As they try to get help, they realize that a terrifying evil is lurking in the surrounding woods.

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What are critics saying?

60

New York Daily News by

Bertino is just concerned with making you feel for his characters — and that he manages to do competently, despite their deep flaws. Well, that and spill some popcorn along the way.

58

The A.V. Club by A.A. Dowd

With The Monster, writer-director Bryan Bertino plants a prickly mother-daughter drama at the center of a violent creature feature. It’s an intriguing combination in theory, but the individual elements both feel a little half-baked, and stirring them up into one doesn’t help. They’re two mediocre tastes that taste mediocre together.

83

The Playlist by Andrew Crump

It’s what we don’t see, at least not in full, that makes the film scare so effectively. Bertino holds his monster in reserve, conceding its presence through brief and mostly obscured glimpses of its shape.

75

RogerEbert.com by Brian Tallerico

The reason that The Monster works is because of how much Kazan’s performance captures the truth of the moment in which Kathy struggles.

80

Los Angeles Times by Justin Chang

Not least of the surprises here is that even when The Monster is trying to scare you witless, its every scene insistently reaffirms its characters’ humanity.

70

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

Part of the ticklish enjoyment in The Monster is how the director, Bryan Bertino (“The Strangers”), plays with genre registers and how, after opening with disquieting stillness and an isolated child, he slowly yet surely turns up the shrieks.

70

We Got This Covered by Matt Donato

In the end, The Monster does more by way of thrilling tension and heartfelt admissions than it does through any scares, but that doesn’t make it a bad horror film. Bryan Bertino reveals a gushy soft side, only to tear out his heart and hoist it for all to see.

38

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

The Monster is as dull and predictable as its title, a creature feature in which the melodramatic flashbacks are the only bits with bite.

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