by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden
In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Stewart Sparke’s U.K. sci-fi/horror creature feature How to Kill Monsters, courtesy of Nightmares Film Festival.
Synopsis
The sole survivor of a blood-drenched massacre must team up with a rag-tag bunch of rookie cops and lawbreakers to defend a police station from an invasion of monsters from another dimension.
The Good
Joseph: I had a blast with cowriter/director Stewart Sparke’s 2018 horror comedy Book of Monsters, and he returns to the genre with that film’s writer Paul Butler and star Lyndsey Craine, along with others, for a practical effects splatterfest that mixes slaughter with laughter in a highly entertaining romp. Final girl Jamie Lancaster (Craine) survives one horrifying ordeal as the ending credits roll — yes, this opens the film — and she is questioned by police as a murder suspect. As Jamie’s side of the story unfolds, she must band together with law enforcement officers and lawbreakers alike as a variety of unnatural beasts lay siege to the jail where she is being held. The cast members give all-in performances, the gore and grue amounts are off the charts in a fun manner, and the practical effects and makeup for both the creatures and their victims are super. Sparke and company treat viewers to a frantic film reminiscent of 1980s creature features but with a spirit all its own.
Mike: How to Kill Monsters had me at “hello” when, in the first five minutes, it turns out that this is going to answer the question that a lot of people ask; “what happens AFTER the Final Girl survives her ordeal?”
Apparently A LOT!
The tone shifts a little after this wonderfully clever opening, but only so Sparke and Butler can tell their darkly humorous story featuring Lovecraftian monsters and a besieged police station. Their script is smart, entertaining, and quite funny and results in some realistic dialogue between some characters that - despite representing most of the horror movie archetypes - are well developed and while everyone did a great job bringing their characters to life, Lyndsey Craine was at the top of the heap here as Jamie, the “final girl”-cum-suspect.
One sure-fire way to make your film scores points with me (and, if I know him half as well as I think I do, this goes for Joseph as well), is to tell your story using practical effects. While CGI is necessary to pull off a Marvel MCU epic, giving me a story with vicious tentacled monsters in a darkened police station can be done better, and probably cheaper, when you do it the old-school way.
The Bad
Joseph: I don’t have many issues or quibbles with How to Kill Monsters. The characters are pretty comically broad, including some racial stereotypes and some who fit neatly into horror comedy tropes, and some have either little or jarringly sudden character arcs.
Mike: This is going to sound like I’m being overly-critical or something, but there were some uses of CGI effects (mostly with blood splatter) that just looked really bad and distracted me during the scenes in which it was utilized. For a movie that went all-in by going all out with practical effects, this seemed a bit lazy to me.
The Verdict
Joseph: How to Kill Monsters is a horror comedy focused much more on the latter than serious tones for the former, and the cast members all seem to be having a grand time. Sparke is a proven quality with the subgenre, and shows he knows how to get the most out of a limited budget. With several members of the cast and crew having previously worked with Sparke, that experience is on fine display. The film boasts some nice surprises and is crafted and acted with infectious verve. Horror comedy aficionados should consider this film a “can’t miss.”
Mike: I don’t want to over-hype How to Kill Monsters to the point where it will never live up to expectations, but I also can’t let this go unseen by anyone who’d appreciate it. Many genre indie movies try way too hard to make up for their shortcomings and end up ruining any goodwill they’ve built in other areas which is a problem this does NOT suffer from. It’s smart, funny, well acted, and chock full of monsters that is, in my opinion, only blemished by a couple of unneeded (and poorly rendered) CGI effects. And of course there are those first few minutes that was enough to sell me on the whole deal.
Highly recommended for fans of practical creature effects, horror/comedies, and clever scripts.
How to Kill Monsters
Directed By: Stewart Sparke
Written By: Paul Butler and Stewart Sparke
Starring: Lyndsey Craine, Arron Dennis, Fenfen Huang
Run Time: 1h 35m
Rating: NR
Release Date: October 26th, 2023
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