Review: Making Monsters

 Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2021
Images from the Internet

Making Monsters
Directed by Justin Harding and Rob Brunner
Samuel Goldwyn Films; BUCK Productions; Bokeh Collective;
Ginger Cat Studios; Vortex Media
85 minutes, 2019
https://www.facebook.com/makingmonstersfilm

If you want to get me upset, play a prank on me. I am not a fan, to the point where I get anxious around April 1. Heck, I won’t even watch most of them on the Internet. The majority of pranks I find to be cruel, and I have no respect for the fools who do it and them post it online (e.g., a clown chasing people with chainsaws). Note, that if someone does that to me, they are going to get a severe response. But nothing compared to what is happening here: care careful whom you victimize, even in Canada (where this film is shot).

The point of this is that the story centers around a couple: first there’s Christian (Tim Loden) who runs his prank site, and then there is the focus of his vicious pranking, the star of his YouTube channel, his fiancé Allison (Alana Elmer). What she sees in this dick is beyond me. Anyway, enough editorializing. He is a popular content provider who does just that very thing: publish his original tricks online. Merry prankster, indeed, making money off people that he terrorizes. And you just know he’s going to reach an audience that wants to take it a step too far, as is wont in these films.

Tim Loden, Alana Elmer

The problem is, Allison is stressed out and done, and needs some – in the words of that great philosopher Elmer Fudd – “West and Wewaxation at wast.” To achieve this, she asks him to cut it the fuck out, and so they decide to take some time and visit friends out in the country. In genre films, is it ever good to go out to a house – actually, a deconsecrated church – in the middle of nowheresville (a fancier cabin-eth in the woods)? This one is owned by Chris’s long-lost school friend Jesse (King Chiu) and his fiancé, the very odd and off David (Jonathan Craig), who is an uber fan of the prank videos. In the words of that other great thinker, Astro, “Ruh-row.”

Chris is eager explain why he enjoys terrorizing people, and why people lap it up, taking a couple of minutes to explain it, when all he really needed to say is “Schadenfreude.” Meanwhile, I kept wanting to say to Allison, “Really, you want to marry this guy and have his kid? Surely you can do better.”

Jonathan Craig

After a night of waiting for Jesse to show up, this leads to some sex and drugs and well, something unworldly. Up to now, it’s been in our realm, but post-hallucinogenic, the audience is not sure what we are seeing is supernatural or part of a mind-bender, leading to some nice and creepy shit, and some decent jump scares. Is it real, something supernatural, drug-induced, or a prank? After the horrific and short prologue at the beginning that uses a drone quite effectively, and then the second Act ramping up on the creepy-factor, it is hard to say. Of course, most things will be answered in the third Act.

The question is what happens when a prankster meets the dark Web real deal? A taste of his own medicine? You see some of this coming early on in the second Act, but certain elements keep the tensions taut, I am happy to say. This is definitely a watch between the fingers kind of film, and not just because of the violence, but the expectation of it. That’s what makes this enjoyable.

This could have been really corny, but the acting, especially by the two leads, and the way it was shot and stylishly put together by the directors (who have worked extensively in television, such as “Top Chef Canada” and “Canada’s Worst Drivers”), make this a pretty solid scarefest. Also, the church is a great set piece, beautifully designed and laid out. I would love to live there, if it weren’t so secluded.

By the end, the tension really ramps up and becomes quite a frenetic film as our killer, in a mask that I suppose is meant to reflect Chris’s look with long hair and a somewhat beard, makes his way through the small cast with quite gruesome and beautifully done SFX. And the choice of music is worth noting as it both reflects the situation and also juxtaposes it, such as the use of the old folk song (one I have always liked) called “In the Pines” (not listed in the credits, so I don’t know who did this interpretation), mixed with some modern orchestral instrumentals.

As I have indicated earlier, there is a supernatural element to the film in the form of a ghost (Jarrett Siddall), which was fine for some jump scares, but honestly, there really did not need to be anything like that needed, as the spookie really does not advance the story at all (though it looks cool), and the human part of it is certainly terrifying enough.

That being said, this is one of the better slasher films I have seen in a while, being innovative while not going too far off the mark for some effective genre tropes, in fact reminding me of another Canadian release, In the House of Flies (2012).  Yeah, I enjoyed this one a lot.