I SPOIL THE ENTIRE ‘PLOT’ HERE
Main Cast: Brea Grant, Adam Egypt Mortimer
Director: Izzy Lee
Another couple of entries in Mark Sieber’s HE WHO TYPES BETWEEN THE ROWS 2.
6 minutes and 55 seconds of a 10-minute workout routine I’ve been trying.
A solid start on POWER PACK: INTO THE STORM #2.
Rest my eyes.
These are just a few of the things I could have done in 6 minutes instead of watching MY MONSTER, a 2018 horror short on the Alter YouTube channel. And I have a feeling every single one of those things would have been more rewarding than the 6 minutes (and 55 seconds) I spent watching this.
MY MONSTER is written and directed by Izzy Lee (60 SECONDS TO DIE), and stars Brea Grant (Heroes, Dexter) and Adam Egypt Mortimer (director of HOLIDAYS and DANIEL ISN’T REAL) as Lily and Rob. Rob is a boxing coach who comes home one Christmas Day to Lily telling him she’s been seeing something outside the window of their house the past few nights.
Rob’s solution is to take a pill and get a good night’s sleep.
Later that night, Rob has fallen asleep in front of the television when Lily hears something outside. She gets up to look and sees a tall, dark figure on the lawn.
At this point in my synopsis of a 6-minute (and 55 second) movie, I’d stop and say something dramatic, something that leaves you intrigued and wanting to know what happened next. In this case, I’ll just tell you so you don’t have to waste your time.
SPOILERS
So the monster gets in, Rob dons his gloves and challenges the beast, it blows wintery cold wind at Rob who passes out or dies. Lily yells at the monster to just tell her what it wants. The monster cowers and Lily yells, “No, you look at me! What do you want from me?” The monster says, “It’s in you,” to which Lily replies she doesn’t know what that means, you mean my blood, you want my blood? I give you my blood and you leave me alone? The monster nods. She presents her arm and the monster takes a bite.
Title card: One week later.
Lily and the monster are watching a movie on the couch when she hears a noise. She gets up to look outside and sees Rob, wearing the same boxer briefs and long-sleeve button down shirt he was wearing before, plus his big red boxing gloves, standing on the lawn.
Credits.
END SPOILERS
You’re welcome. I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out the original title was HOW I MET MY MONSTER because this thing’s as terrifying as a sitcom.
Maybe it’s the context that’s ruining this one for me. Maybe if I wasn’t watching it on a YouTube channel dedicated to horror shorts, I wouldn’t have disliked it so much? Maybe if, instead of “an ever-expanding platform for the most daring storytellers in the world of horror” the Alter tagline read “cutesy horror for the whole family” I might have known what to expect.
THIS is daring storytelling? 8th grade emo girls scoff at this one. And then can’t believe Lily could wind up with someone so ugly as that monster.
I’m struggling with this one. Obviously I don’t care for the story, but is there ANYTHING worthwhile to grab onto here?
The acting wasn’t terrible. Grant gives it a shot with the dialogue, I guess. Mortimer, however, feels like he’s having a hard time just getting the words out, let alone emoting on top of it. And Steve Johnson as the monster … well, this is his first acting credit …
Okay, the acting was pretty bad, too.
The special effects? It’s a horror movie about a monster, and I grew up in the 80s when horror was at its peak, so you really have to be on top of your game with me, or be so cheesy I can’t help but love it. This was neither. I’m sure there are some Paint.net plug ins I could have done the same “special effects” with, and the monster make up was about as generic as it gets. This was the work of the first person kicked off Face Off every season.
Man, was I let down with this one. And I hate saying that because I love horror, all types and subgenres, all levels of craft. I’ve said it dozens of times before and it still holds true: I’d watch the crappiest low budget horror movie before the best-made Oscar-winning Best Picture any day of the week. Hell, it even holds true now with this short.
But, really, MY MONSTER is only horror in the sense one of the characters is a “monster”. But other than that, I was never unsettled, I was never creeped out, I was never thanking God I wasn’t one of these characters. I just overall didn’t care one bit about anything that was happening onscreen in front of me.
So can I recommend MY MONSTER? If you like innocuous, neutered horror, then yes, by all means, knock yourself out. But if you insist your horror, even if not “scary” by your standards, at least PRETEND to be horror? You’re better off just rewatching some old Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? cartoons.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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