The Chicken Soup for the Soul publishing imprint promises pithy, uplifting stories targeted to general audiences as well as niche markets like teenagers and pet lovers. So what would you think of a horror movie co-produced by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment? Unfortunately, Monstrous, directed by Chris Siverston from a thin script by Carol Chrest, is an underdeveloped mystery more suited to a “Twilight Zone” reboot — or a short anecdote in Chicken Soup for the Anxiety Dream — than an 89-minute feature.
Set in the mid-‘50s, the film follows Laura (Ricci), an agitated single mother on the road with her seven-year old son Cody (Santino Barnard), apparently on the run from an abusive husband. Laura is a type as familiar to film noir as to contemporary domestic drama, but to her credit Ricci doesn’t play her like a passive victim. The cool sarcasm that has been the actor’s signature since her days as Wednesday is well in evidence here. Ricci fleshes out an underwritten role; when she’s exasperated with both her landlord (Colleen Camp) and her boss (Lew Temple), you expect her seething contempt to explode in some candy-colored carnage.
The vivid Mid-century modern design — from fashion to furniture to automotive elements — is easy on the eye, and cinematographer Senda Bonnet bathes scenes in an appropriate gauze. Ricci creates some tension by seeming to work against this nostalgic template—you can almost hear an unspoken snark in some of her expressions. She doesn’t phone it in, but she can’t make up for the murky plot, in which her son’s visions of an unconvincing CGI creature emerging from the lake turn into a cheap red herring for a different kind of trauma.
The whole monstrous plot elements seem in the end like a throwaway idea, and too many pieces seem second-hand. But one borrowed sub-plot suggests a terrific alternate vehicle. When Cody fails to hand out invitations to a birthday party that Laura worked hard to plan, it’s a not to Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise’s atmospheric 1944 film Curse of the Cat People — and Ricci would be perfect for the Simone Simon role If anybody dared to remake it.
There are potentially Lynchian elements here, observing the strange underbelly of an era that we just assume was repressed and conservative. Laura doesn’t seem of the era; she seems like somebody from the 21st century in ‘50s cosplay. The movie sometimes plays like a melodramatic car show (which may not be far off from how Blue Velvet played). And anachronisms start to pile up: when mom picks up a roll of film she had developed, the processing envelope looks nothing like ‘50s design, and likewise, the prints seem like 21st century pharmacy products.
But these discrepancies turn out to be by design; without spoiling the twist, Laura’s journey takes a very different turn that suggests a whole different movie—and a far more interesting one. Sadly, despite Ricci’s intense performance, Monstrous will not provide a nourishing chicken soup for the horror movie fan.
Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films
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