Sunday, October 25

Some quick thoughts on Monster Man (2003)


A twenty five-year-old virgin, his dickish buddy, and newly acquired hitchhiker with female sexual or-gggannns manage to severely piss off a severely facially disadvantaged rust-clad monster truck driver out in the sandy desert sticks inhabited by hicks with varying appendages conspicuously missing.

I just became aware director/writer Michael Davis went on from this to helm Shoot 'Em Up. Yep, that Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti-starring Shoot 'Em Up. Damn, talk about a quantum leap in filmography. Though I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, since the wafer-thin blowout kitchen sink aesthetic that made that 2007 crap action effort so Mickey D's Chicken McNuggets-fun is applied to the horror comedy with Monster Man.

Sure, the comedy is proudly juvenile, but how can you not get the giggles over a dude sucking shit out of a camper's waste tank expecting gas or wet dream feline roadkill cunnilingus? I see you smirking so get off your cinéma high horse for a moment. This is nothing but high calorie pungently salty sautéed horromedy afterbirth; not belonging in the pantheon of either genre's greats yet being brisk on its toes to avoid boredom. Davis' prior straight comedy work dominates most of the film's ninety-five minutes, which you could use as a complaint, but this colors the three leads making their relationship to each other and the audience agreeable thus saving the you aren't watchin' for this anyway story from being entirely pointless.

The last half hour is where the splat smacks the walls with plenty of textured grue, grisly living torsos, writer's best friend eye insertions, unwanted throat openings, and Bigfoot 2019: After the Fall of Monster Jam mayhem. Davis makes up for the dearth of balls out horror in the preceding otherwise entertaining hour in my book. Others have disagreed, but have they really experienced the true depths of recent dreck? Just sit down and watch Flu Bird Horror next time it's on Syfy (w/ their 628 commercials-per-hour quota) and then we'll see if you can still view this good-intentioned Monster Man as harshly...

(spoilerish)

2 comments:

Toxaemia said...

"Rooose Bud!"

Nothing special, but fairly entertaining nonetheless.

Jay Clarke said...

I could take or leave all the wisecracks, but I did really like the design of the monster truck, with its gnashing teeth grille.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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