Gareth Edward's "Monsters"

Gareth Edward's "Monsters" is a odd entry in the "Giant Monster" movie genre, more road movie than thriller, and how you react to it will probably depend on how much you can put up with nothing happening for long stretches - it basically plays like "The Mist" without religious loonies or a lot of monsters or a lot of action. The setup is fairly simple. Six years ago, a NASA probe was supposed to bring back samples of newly-discovered extraterrestrial life but the probe broke up over Mexico. The samples survived and grew into giant walking squids that have devastated a large swath of northern Mexico to the US border. A free-lance journalist working in Mexico (Scoot McNairy) is ordered by his editor to bring back the publisher's daughter (Whitney Able) who's been stranded there. Making their way north towards the now-walled border, they survive several run-ins with the squids until they make it back into America, only to discover the Great Wall of America hasn't worked and the aliens are now pushing into our country as well.

Made for the truly astonishing amount of $15,000 dollars, "Monsters" is both cursed and blessed by its budget. Writer/Directed/Special Effects artist Edwards basically roamed around Central America with his small crew, filming improvised bits and pieces with the locals while creating the monsters on a laptop computer. As a special effects artist, Edwards has created a terrific demo film for himself - it's easily equal to any recent monster film in terms of its special effects. As a thriller though, it's not much. Inbetween times when the monsters show up, the film is basically two people wandering through the jungle making small talk. McNairy is a divorced dad who misses his kids and Able is a blonde babe who's going home to get married to a guy she's clearly ambivalent about. They chat with the locals, who have learned to put up with the monsters coming out of the jungle occasionally, and discover they sorta kinda maybe like each other before they get to America and  have to quickly figure out if this means anything. I appreciated Edwards low-key approach but the two characters aren't very interesting between monster attacks and nice scenery with good music will only get you so far. It will be interesting to see what his next movie will be like, but I can't really recommend paying to see "Monsters" in a theater.