MONSTER is The Asylum’s answer to “Cloverfield” and while it lacks some of the perilous thrills of its predecessor inspiration (who can forget the heart-in-throat leaning skyscraper sequence in J.J. Abrams’ bigger budget monster flick gone cinema verite?), it nonetheless captures the heart of this blinded-by-the-light fan of the found-footage conceit. In MONSTER, it’s a pair of American girls in Tokyo filming a documentary on global warming whose footage is found after Tokyo is devastated. The official story: Earthquake. But the “truth” according to MONSTER is that it was actually an attack by a great beast. A tentacled big nasty of some sorts spends time roaring and ravaging Tokyo. Much of the ravaging is either off-screen, seen after-the-fact or happens during frantic flailings of the camera, often paired with picture glitches. I could have done with less of this glitchiness the filmmakers added to MONSTER to up the verisimilitude and I’d like to have seen less shaky-shaky and more monster. However, MONSTER is noticeably aware of the old-school idea that you just show snatches of the beastie until the end. Even then, we get a clearer look at the tentacles but there’s still much unseen. MONSTER uses devastation and not-knowing to (A) get around budgetary limitations and (B) keep the viewer hanging on to see the thing that wrecked Tokyo. BTW, I thought it was a nice touch that The Asylum’s giant monster should go after Godzilla’s old stomping ground ….
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