Monsters

Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able. Writer-director: Gareth Edwards.

Six years after aliens have landed, a journalist escorts a tourist through the "infected zone", a fenced-off swathe of northern Mexico.

A very different kind of monster movie, I'll bet. Trailer 1 sells this as a horror, a cousin, perhaps, to Cloverfield. Trailer 2 sells it as a bit more of a mystery.

With a reputed budget of Stg£500,000, Monsters is an independent feature that looks like a blockbuster - and the lower production budget gives it huge freedom from the studio-imposed MBA-driven bullshit that a film like this would normally suffer from. I'm hugely hopeful about this one - if it succeeds, and all the indications are that it is already succeeding, it may change the paradigm on how low-budget movies find success, and further erode the power of the studios.

The budget figure quoted fails to take into account the fact that the director is a visual effects artist of long standing, who did most of the VFX himself, in the same way as El Mariachi's reputed $7,000 budget was actually in the region of $60,000 when you add post-production expenditure after the film had been bought by the studio, but both figures are still very impressive indeed.

I'm excited about this, and I'd really like to go see it. Of course I probably won't, but such is life. Here's the trailers.





And while I'm here, if you go to the cinema, ever, you need to watch this and abide by these sensible rules. If they offend you and you think you should be exempt in some way, don't go to the cinema any more.



Lastly, I'm ditching the Amazon affiliate programme for various reasons, and I'm looking for some ideas on how to help support this blog. Got any requests or ideas?