Let me start by saying that one of my biggest cinema cravings is monster movies. Especially GIANT monster movies. Maybe it’s the combination of horror, disaster and spectacle that does it, or it’s just the sheer twisted glee of watching a rampaging twenty-story “Something” stomp a metropolis into oblivion. Sadly, however, too many of them were well before my time and consequently more than a little dated for modern viewing. Citizen Kane may hold up as a great piece of cinema because it’s a drama rooted in human reality. Godzilla vs. Mothra on the other hand does not, since special effects tend to age rather poorly, it’s kind of hard to suspend disbelief just enough to revel in what good giant monster films should be about – fear and awe.
Happily, things are beginning to change on the lonesome giant monster flick scene, first with the arrival of Matt Reeves’ and J.J. Abrams’ viral-cult-hit Cloverfield, a surprisingly small-budget but big-bang blockbuster. In the wake of Cloverfield, one of the more interesting upcoming “small-big” films is Monsters, and this new trailer has been making the viral rounds and stirring some strong interest – especially among Cloverfield fans.
Watch the trailer below the jump!
Written and directed by British visual effects artist Gareth Edwards in his feature film debut, Monsters is described as an indie road trip movie in which two characters, Samantha (Whitney Able) and Andrew (Scoot McNairy), are thrown into a surreal and frightening science fiction setting where they must make their way through an “infected zone” in northern Mexico. The “infection” however happens to be a spreading alien ecosystem that has sewed disaster and spawned giant monstrous creatures now roaming the ruined landscape.
The trailer is moody and gritty, depicting an almost post-apocalyptic setting of towns and cities laid to waste and abandoned as the main characters are introduced as desperate vagrants trying to make their way back to the United States, but clearly now cut off from the outside world. As they make their way further into the heart of the “infected zone”, we are told that it has been six years since the alien presence first arrived, and that by now “they are no longer aliens, they are residents”. As the trailer slowly builds, we are teased with shots of the monstrous aliens as well as the blockbuster eye candy of military hardware (both active and deceased) in the backdrop.
What makes the Monsters trailer so refreshing, and the film so promising, is its tone and feel –unhurried, surreal, and an intimacy with the characters in a situation so beyond them and out of their control. The result is eerie, and enough to make you feel incredibly small and in awe, which for a monster movie is exactly what you want to be.
- The Australian release date for Monsters is November 25th.
