Do me a favor. Go ahead and read the 2 or 3 sentence synopsis of this film’s plot on either LB or IMDB. Then close your eyes and quickly imagine in your mind’s eye what a movie with that description might look like and what you might expect to happen in it. I’ll wait.

I promise you that whatever you just came up with in your head is more creative and more interesting than anything that happens in the entirety of this complete and utter, generic waste of time.

I'm giving this 2 stars for the director's general competence. You know, keeping boom mics out of the frame, pointing the camera toward the actors instead of at the wall, basic continuity.....

Even the title just screams that the team behind this was thinking outside the box, doesn’t it?

Doesn't the poster look like Newt from Aliens?
They mostly come at night. Mostly.

After seeing The Strangers for the first time recently, I wanted to catch up on Bryan Bertino's filmography. Will check out Mockingbird next.

This was so wrongly marketed. No no, this was by no means a horror movie. On the other hand, it was an out and out family drama. I'm not implying it would have changed the eventual mediocrity of the whole experience, but it would have helped to keep the expectations under radar.

Zoe Kazan and Ella Ballentine deserved better for they were the only shining stars in this effortlessly scripted indie misfire. Woefully underwritten, messily paced and stuck in its own trap of genre blending, The Monster is neither scary nor intelligent.

It's sorta like Cujo minus the dog & good performances.

I would have rated this 5-stars if in the end, the mom sits up and looks at her daughter, asks "are you scared?" and as her daughter looks at her with huge bewildered eyes, mom smiles & says, "Well, you should be. Your'e on Scare Tactics."

the REAL monster is like alcohol or something and I just want to go to sleep

i get the metaphor thing but also that monster is exactly what i look like in real life

i picked seeing this over the space jam 20th anniversary screening and you know what? i played myself

Films Watched in 2020 - Film 263
Growing Pains Challenge - Film 52/65
A24 Ranked 

Good example of how getting your characters to scream at each other doesn’t make the film more scary/intense, it just gives me a headache.

Yet another dull horror-thriller from writer-director Bryan Bertino, The Monster has stunning cinematography, solid practical creature effects, and strong performances from Zoe Kazan and Ella Ballentine going for it but little else, whether it be an engaging story, interesting characters, or a real sense of pacing.

Reading the premise of this movie is a more exciting experience than actually watching it. Don't tell me I don't get it, because I get what they were trying to do. The Monster really wants to be clever and metaphoric, but I'm sorry, it just doesn't work in this case.

A decent horror movie with a lot of build up and no real release, due mostly to a predictable, emotionally and thematically confusing climax. Unfortunately for Brian Bertino, it takes more than an attractively minimal aesthetic and a heavy atmosphere to make a film really worth watching. While the director's debut The Strangers sits among my favorite horror films of all time, no one can deny the common flaws present between that film and his latest outing. Hopefully he can figure things out for this The Strangers sequel coming out soon.

Some horror movies are just like magic tricks. You’re so distracted with what is going on with one of the hands of the magician that you don’t see the trick coming. The distraction here is the intense and well-developed relationship between the two main characters. In this movie, the titular monster could easily be the abusive and alcoholic mother or even the resentful daughter. But, yes, there is a monster. Literately. And, yes, you can see it. And it is terrifying, thanks to the visual effects team.

Enjoyed the performances from Kazan and Ballentine and did like “the monster” and how they went for little to no CGI. But found the script to be majorly lacking. Unconvincing backstory and dialogue based on what we saw. A promising film if they found the right tone to hit between the mother and daughter.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

This was a lot more boring than I'd expected? And those last 20 minutes? Yikes.

Eh. Monster was cool though.

People are too hard on this, and I believe the main reason is marketing. The movie is very difficult to be sold. It's not a straight up horror and not just a drama. So I believe this will be much more enjoyed by people who love both of the genres, who don't have issues with genre bending, and don't really care about the genre before they start watching a movie.

Good acting, good monster design, emotional, very well directed. Yeah, a basic plot (if you only look to the main story) and some unrealistic choices by the characters. But it's solid, very solid.

Same thing happened to my cousin Diane last thanksgiving.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Awkwardly bad music placement, bad lighting throughout, lousy and cliche horror movie setups and payoffs, and maybe, just maybe the most unlikeable protagonist I’ve seen in a movie

Some really good sound design and concepts, but the script was bordering on embarrassing at some points goddamn

Worst A24 movie by a longshot 
(Tusk is good, y’all are just mean)