The Monster Project - A Vampire, Demon, and Skinwalker Walk into a Bar
A Skinwalker, Vampire, Demon, and drug addict walk into a cult bar….
“Truth is more complicated.”
The Monster Project is a 2017 found footage horror flick directed by Victor Mathieu starring Justin Bruening, Toby Hemingway, Murielle Zuker and Jamal Quezaire.
The Premise:
Devon and Jamal run a YouTube channel where they post fake videos like, “Creepy Monster on Roof CAUGHT ON TAPE!” Viewers believe it’s real, but it’s mostly Devon in costume. Devon wants to take it one step further and posts a craigslist add asking for “real monsters” to reach out to him.
Meanwhile, Jamal’s roommates are in a bit of a drama – Murielle is Devon’s ex, and Bryan is freshly sober from a very heavy addiction. So, obviously, Devon is not welcome in their house. But when Devon throws some money around for Bryan and lets Murielle direct, the team comes together reluctantly.
Devon has rented a decrepit old house where the team sets up to film the interviews. One by one the subjects arrive; Shayla who considers herself a vampire, Shiori who claims to be possessed by a demon, and Steven who is a skinwalker. That night there’s a full lunar eclipse, and as the interviews are almost finished a fuse blows and chaos ensues.
Perhaps locking themselves in a house with three possible real-life monsters during an eclipse was probably not the best idea.
“Those people that we brought here to interview aren’t people!”
What I loved: (SPOILERS)
Let’s dive right in and talk about the monsters! The Skinwalker was my favorite and their version of the lore was cool. Basically, Steven became a Skinwalker because he killed a family member and made a pact with the devil. He speaks about his mind splitting in two when he transforms, and mentions only silver can kill him. Steven also concealed his identity because he’s a cop on the reservation. When he fully transforms the look of him was super cool, I loved when the Skinwalker would fill up the frame of the camera, it was super scary. I loved the vampire, Shayla. She was super sassy and again the lore was slightly different than that we were used to, and she never played it “over the top”. Vampires are not immortal, and they can go out in the sunlight only it makes them feel hungover. They also don’t need blood to live and treat it more like a drug. Lastly, Shiori was fucking cool. She’s been possessed by a demon since she was a little child, and while we don’t learn too much, there’s a lot of great creepy scenes involving her and the “bad man” demon.
There’s A LOT going on in this movie. Of course, we have our three monsters, the complicated relationships of the YouTube team, the drug addiction, the abandoned house that was apparently used for satanic sacrifice in the 60’s, the lunar eclipse, and as the story develops – an active cult with Devon as the leader. It’s a lot. It’s jam packed. But look – somehow it works! Because all of the actors do such a fantastic job you are completely along for the ride and by the time the cult shows up you’re like SURE LET’S DO THIS WHY NOT?!
I really enjoyed the human element of this flick. It was fun to watch the complicated relationships between Devon, Bryan, Murielle and Jamal. And Bryan’s drug story was also really fascinating to watch. Toby Hemingway did a really great job playing an addict without going over the top, it all felt quite believable to me. At one-point Shiori’s demon pulls Bryan into sort of a purgatory situation and Bryan is forced to face the fact that he killed his friends by selling them drugs they overdosed on. It brought such tragedy and depth to Bryan at just the right point in the story so that leading up to the ending, you were genuinely devastated when you find out Devon has organized this entire debacle to basically raise Satan and Bryan has been his puppet.
“Evil seeps through the cracks in society and it targets vulnerable people.”
Overall, The Monster Project is a decent found footage flick that most of the time, doesn’t rely on found footage tropes to get things done. Of course, once the monsters kick off, the found footage does get irritating – lots of blurry scenes, people running, yelling, you genuinely have no idea what’s going on. But that’s sort of what found footage is right? Outside of that though this is a story about addiction, about faith, and about the danger of keeping secrets. It’s got a pretty good moral story for a low budget horror flick. And the effects are really great! There’s not a lot of noticeable CGI here so it’s easy to immerse yourself in the story.
Highly recommend for a casual Friday night viewing!
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