Monsters of War (2021)

I cannot begin to explain how excited I am for this one. And as a Blogger that's a bit of a problem cos like... that's what I'm supposed to do best? But uh yeah this looks incredibly, spectacularly bollocks. The crème de la bollocks. And I am here for it. FTW Week took a bit of a break last month as I drafted in "Invasion" of the Saucer Men instead, but it is back with a bang after a short hiatus this month with, what I think, could just be one of the worst movies I will ever cover. And I know, I've said that before multiple times, but this honestly looks awful: Monsters of War; a 2021 Movie from ITN Distribution pits 3 unlikely heroines against a Giant Gorilla and a T-Rex amongst other creatures in a battle to save the planet before the beasts seize control. A quick run down of the cast and I'm seeing some pretty familiar names here... Chelsea Greenwood, Chrissie Wunna, Sofia Lacey... all stars of a previous blog feature: Dinosaur Hotel. A movie I believe I described as: "Utterly uttterly some of the worst garbage I've watched since the last worst garbage" so err... it does not bode well for poor old Monsters of War. Like I said, I am just unexplainably excited to discover how shockingly abysmal this movie is going to turn out to be. LESSS GO.

Fresh after being the sole survivor of the Dinosaur Hotel ordeal, Sienna changes her name to May (Chrissie Wunna) and picking up her kids (Junior and Ruby Wunna), subsequently leaves her husband to make the 40 minute journey to her mother. I'm just kidding it's not a direct sequel but the rest of that statement is true. After pulling over to get nagged by her daughter, some weird snake thing begins to attack the car causing May and the kids to run away in one of the more careful and gingerly escapes I think I've ever watched before they are confronted by an hysterical guy in orange overalls with a gun and I couldn't understand a fucking word he was saying to them. But not that the exchange matters because they are all forced to take shelter in a nearby cave when 2 T-Rex's show up. Like every good mother, May decides to leave her kids behind and go off further into the cave with the hysterical man with the gun but they don't get very far before they run into some kind of weird spidery looking thing who kills hysterical jump suit man and May ends up back at the mouth of the cave again running away with her kids. They are so bad at this. They just look thoroughly uninterested. They run away and are suddenly outside a really big house which, I shit you not, looks exactly like the eponymous hotel from Dinosaur Hotel!! After being let in by Lyn (Kate Sandison - yup another Dino Hotel star... sensing a bit of a pattern here) it's revealed that the hotel is a kind of shelter for some of the other survivors with Mark (?) seemingly being the guy in charge. After sticking her kids in a room out the way again, May and Lyn head outside to the fire escape where May asks Lyn if they can all trust Mark and that he won't do something stupid, which I'm sure is not foreboding or anything like that... before they are scared back inside by dinosaur sounds in the distance. Meanwhile Goth lady Sam (Sofia Lacey - and by far about the best actor in this thing so far) and Mark have a bit of an argument over Mark's attitude when they pick up a radio broadcast from some other survivors, two soldiers. After giving them directions to the hotel, which is actually a hostel, they arrive whilst being pursued by the giant spider-scorpion thing from earlier which is now about x10 bigger for... some reason... but make it into the hostel alive. One of the soldiers, Mel (Chelsea Greenwood), explains that they need to let "the officials" know that the hostel can be used as a shelter, but Mark is mega reluctant about letting others into the place, in the event it attracts the attention of more of the creatures, but is eventually talked down by Mel and the other soldier, Bryan (Stephen Staley). Meanwhile May's daughter, Sue, decides that her mum is lying to her about the reasons for leaving her Dad and escapes from the hostel into the woods. As the others gather round to watch a news broadcast, one of the survivors, a Russian Nun for... some reason... Sister I don't know (?) starts preaching about it being Armageddon and the end times and everyone being judged e.t.c and everyone just sort of looks around confused until they change the subject to May's kids. Speaking of kids, May goes up to check on them and discovers that Sue has disappeared into the woods in search of her dad. Rounding up Mel and Bryan to go with her, the trio leave the hostel and begin the search, before tracking her down almost straight away(?) and then somehow getting lost in the woods before Bryan gets attacked and eaten when - get this - they get snuck up on by a MASSIVE TYRANNOSAURUS REX. Back at the hotel Lyn is having an asthma attack and Sam volunteers to fetch her inhaler from her car outside but once at the car she is attacked and killed by a now very tiny spider-scorpion (well that sucks) with a distraught Mark watching on inside powerless to help, waiting just long enough for her to die before he rushes outside to grab the inhaler just as May, Mel and Sue make it back from the woods. After another painful exchange between Sue and her kids who can't act... URRRRRGGGHH... we are in the living room and sick of the preachy stuff, Mark and Sister whatshername who later gets called Brenda (Antonia Johnstone), get into an argument which leads to Sister Brenda trying to prove her holiness by going outside, believing she will be saved from the beasts, but instead she gets gobbled up by a massive dragon... and Mel and May have a bit of a heart to heart in the bathroom as Mel grieves the loss of her mentor and best friend and proves she's far too good to be staring in these shite B-Movies. The survivors make a plan to break for "the city" in the morning, with one of the survivors who hasn't been important enough to mention yet; Donna (Aimee Marie Higham) volunteering to stay behind with Lyn. Then we get a bit of exposition from Mel who explains that the belief is the creatures were dinosaurs and beasts once thought extinct but in reality were just driven underground, waiting for the right moment to strike back. And that the Government knew all about it but chose to do nothing (yeah sounds about right). And then we have... OH GOD NO not another scene with the kids... thankfully it's short, it is then morning again and Mark is taking his sweet time with getting the car outside working despite the grounds being loitered by a T-Rex and a massive Dragon amongst other things... but once it's all fixed up, Mel, May and the kids all jump in but before they can even pull away they are forced to watch as Donna get's swarmed and murdered by a gang of tiny spider-scorpions and a much bigger spider-scorpion takes out Lyn. Fleeing the hostel they get just far enough before the car conks out to make it to May's car, but with a T-Rex in hot pursuit and Mark still distraught about losing Lyn, he turns and faces the dinosaur shooting at it until it chomps him up. Rushing and making it to May's car, May, Mel and the kids drive off down the scenic countryside as they are chased by a prehistoric dinosaur... and Mark isn't even named in the credits.

Jack Peter Mundy you've done it again! Well... I don't think this was quite as bad as Dinosaur Hotel to be honest with you. But that is a bit like having horrendous diarrhoea and saying it wasn't quite as bad as the last time. Like, you still have diarrhoea. I also have a couple of questions: 1) where was my Giant Gorilla I was promised going into this? 2) Why in the fuck is it called Monsters of War? What war? I thought going into this we'd have big beasts duking it out with the military and shit but no. It's just some dinosaurs chasing Chrissie Wunna and her cardboard children around. 

I do sort of feel a bit guilty for ragging on the kids. They're just kids man... but they are honestly just really bad. Like they are being forced to act in this against their will, maybe they are? They were the same in Dino Hotel to be honest. They just look so uninterested. Like, if that's how it's gonna be keep them out of it man. It just smacks so badly of amateurism and the dialogue exchanges between Chrissie and her eldest daughter are just so  t e d i o u s. I skipped through one of them because I just couldn't bring myself to watch it. I honestly am concerned that they are being forced into this against their will.

And on the subject of acting, and this may come as a bit of a big surprise, generally speaking mostly everyone was alright in this. Chrissie Wunna got a bit vanilla and a bit grating in moments and she spends half of this film just having this forced expression of despair on her face, but otherwise Sofia Lacey was pretty good and Chelsea Greenwood equally was pretty decent. Both women have absolutely no place being in these bollocks B-Movies and should absolutely be doing better things. Even Mark was decent even if he didn't get credited. Maybe he was like "don't you dare put my name in this." when he saw the test screening?

And as far as cinematography was concerned there was also some really creative camera-useage. Some cool, interesting and creative angles, some nice use of depth of field adjustments. It's clear some genuine skill, care and attention went into shooting this thing! Sound-wise things were a different matter though and there was alot of scenes where I struggled to hear the dialogue over the background noise. After the credits rolled it became apparent that this was shot by a team of about 5 people counting the Director himself and to be honest, despite the sound issues, I think they can mostly be pleased in terms of production. It was a pretty well produced B-Movie I can certainly credit it with that.

Similarly the special effects were... not terrible. I know? But they honestly weren't. I mean they absolutely looked post prod and kind of 'hyper real' in comparison to the rest of the scene they were inserted into if you know what I mean, but they actually looked, acted and moved like the things they were supposed to look like. Even the creepy spider-scorpion things were decently done. The... snake...? thing? At the beginning looked a bit dodgy but I'll let it slide. Again VFX are all done by one bloke and I think he can be pleased with his work here. Dodgy movie, but the dinos looked mostly like dinos. Nice one Tyler James.

Think though... that is mostly about where my praise ends to be honest, because otherwise this was a pretty dyed in the wool B-Movie. 75% of it takes place inside the hotel / hostel. Lot's of dialogue scenes. Most of the movie kind of meandering around in circles as the survivors get picked off one by one in cliché fashion. There's not really any ambition, any creativity beyond that. It's a cookie cutter low budget B-Movie: 4 survivors slowly get murdered one by one by the thing they are running away from. It pretty much just recycled the plot of Dinosaur Hotel except with a bit of a different take on it. Right down to the car scene.

I enjoyed this though. Well, mostly... albeit though for mostly the wrong reasons. It was kinda refreshing getting to see Sofia Lacey and Chelsea Greenwood just be good at acting in what was otherwise mostly a crap movie. And I was impressed by some of the decent camera work. But I mostly enjoyed this for how terribly low budget it was, and how it was almost a carbon copy of Dinosaur Hotel. Like I bring it up so many times, because it's basically the same movie. I'm absolutely now going to have search out a third Jack Peter Mundy movie just to see if he recycles exactly the same film again a 3rd time around. But yeah, despite Sofia and Chelsea being decent and despite some nice camera work I was still irritated by how wooden Chrissie Wunna and her kids are and it was still, largely, a pretty shite movie. 1 out of 5.