[Movie Review] There Is a Monster (2024)
There Is a Monster, a small budget supernatural horror film from writer and director Mike Taylor, is fresh out of the starting gate on VOD platforms. Based loosely on his own family’s experiences, There Is a Monster is a personal work for Taylor, starring Joey Collins as Jack, a veteran portrait photographer whose small studio is just starting to gain traction.
When the film starts, Jack’s difficulties are immediately apparent—his wife Carol (Ena O’Rourke) is giving him the cold shoulder following a past transgression. Meanwhile, young makeup artist Suzy (MerryRose Howley) seems more than willing to swoop in. To Jack’s credit, he rejects Suzy’s advances, though not before his assistant Billy (Jesse Milliner) catches their embrace. While this tension seems like a juicy, if standard, conflict to kick off the larger themes of the film, disappointingly little comes from it, apart from setting the stage for Jack’s later reconciliation with Carol. It would have been interesting to see Suzy play a bigger role in the second and third acts, whether as an empathetic but jilted coworker, or as a secondary foil, culminating in a mid-film confrontation with Carol. Instead, Suzy’s character is left to fade away into the background, even as Jack’s studio gets bigger gigs.
The film’s true antagonist doesn’t show its face until well into the film, when Suzy’s relevance is already waning. While Jack goes about his day, a shadow is seen lurking in the background—distant at first, but increasingly closer as its presence grabs hold of Jack’s daily life. The shadow’s effect is reminiscent of Mike Flanagan’s eerie effects in Absentia, though here it opts for a flatter, brushed out black figure rather than Flanagan’s more practical stand-in. The decision is more effective in some scenes than in others—when the rest of the frame is shrouded in darkness for instance, it’s much easier for the figure to blend into the background, whereas in the daylight scenes, like when Jack is on his runs through the woods, it stands out far too much to draw surprise from viewers.
When Jack’s monster finally approaches him, its consequences become even more apparent. On first contact, his voice becomes slack and muffled. On second, he begins having trouble holding things in his hand. The monster’s degenerative effects on Jack are sudden and seemingly irreversible—and by far the scariest part of the film. Even as Jack reaches out to others for help, no one seems willing to accept what he’s seeing or seems capable of doing anything about it, leaving him to deal with his monster on his own.
It isn’t until Jack’s affliction has visibly affected his daily routine that the concerns of his friends and family lead them to take action and by then, the monster’s attacks are frequent and ruthless. Billy takes over as lead photographer at the studio and Carol is finally ready to make amends, though it’s honestly a little unclear whether it’s out of pure forgiveness or a cocktail of pity and concern for what her husband is going through. David (Marcellus Bassman Shepard), Jack’s barstool buddy, seems to show genuine concern earlier than anyone else, though he too is relegated to a background role outside of happy hour.
There Is a Monster clocks in at a brisk 82 minutes, but even at that pace, the characters can sometimes appear to be stalling for time. The dialogue can be unessential, perhaps no more so than when Jack reveals to David the revelatory name he’s come up with for his tormentor: “I call it a monster.” It’s not the kind of line that kills the tone but there are a number of ways to deliver the same information more naturally or more expeditiously.
As a feature-length picture, There Is a Monster leaves a little to be desired for its pacing and dead ends. I think it would fare much better if it were recut as a short film or even a featurette—a tighter cut gives it the chance to hold onto the building tension and to create urgency in the viewer. It would allow the characters to feel more connected to each other, rather than existing in their own bubbles, linked only by their relationship to Jack. This is a film that has clearly been made with passion and it deals with a difficult subject that rarely gets the attention it deserves. Its slower stride may limit its appeal with casual moviegoers, but it may be worth checking out if the theme strikes a chord with you.
There Is a Monster is now available on VOD platforms.
Article written by Ande Thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
