Verdict
Summary
A little lengthy for a genre film, Mon Mon Mon Monsters! stretches itself to close to a full two hours, and it certainly could have used some trimming (especially during the torture scenes), but the payoff is pretty sweet if you’re willing to invest in the bizarre tale it’s trying to tell.
Plot:
A group of classmates doing community service discover two flesh-eating creatures hiding in an old building.
Review:
A relentlessly bullied Taiwanese teenager named Duan (Kent Tsai) is ordered to lead a team of his classmates (his bullies, because fate hates him) on a half-assed community outreach project that has them completely without a chaperone and supervision at an eerily under populated slum where it seems that anything can happen to anyone at any time. Duan allows himself to be pressured by his bullies into harassing several elderly tenants of the cubby dwellings they’re supposed to be cleaning, and when they stumble across a filthy feral teenager with a mouthful of fangs, the bullies chain her up and force Duan to torture her by extracting her teeth one at a time. Over the course of several days and nights, the kids return to the area where they have their captured creature, and being the fools that they are, they meddle with business they have no business getting involved with, such as torturing the creature that has an older sister out in the darkest reaches of the slums looking for her. What are these deadly cannibalistic creatures? Are they ghouls? Zombies? Vampires? Duan investigates and finds some strange history on the two girls who turn out to be much older than they look, and as his spirit degrades as he plunges himself into his bullies’ “just for the fun of it” lifestyle, he becomes the catalyst for the ultimate revenge, using the creatures as harbingers of his long-con plan.
A little lengthy for a genre film, Mon Mon Mon Monsters! stretches itself to close to a full two hours, and it certainly could have used some trimming (especially during the torture scenes), but the payoff is pretty sweet if you’re willing to invest in the bizarre tale it’s trying to tell. The creatures and their on screen viciousness are surprisingly portrayed, and if you think you’ve seen everything in the horror genre, this one offers some head spinners that’ll keep you on your toes. Most of the characters are despicable, and you look forward to seeing them get their just rewards, but the movie doesn’t end quite like you think it will, which is refreshing. Writer / director Giddens Ko style and sensibilities are a little youthful for my taste, but overall, I did appreciate this effort.
Mon Mon Mon Monsters! is now on DVD and blu ray from RLJE.
