Doug Goodman

I had a weird experience tonight.  I was tired and alone since the family was at a school function, so I decided to sit down and watch a horror movie.  I pulled up On Demand and hit the Same Day As Released section.  This is a cool section if, like me, not all good movies come to your area of the woods.  On the Same Day as Released, I once saw a movie called "Red" - no, not the Bruce Willis movie about CIA agents, but the movie about an old recluse who seeks vengeance on a couple of whiny teens.  You know the kind - think they own the world and nothing can get in there way.  Well, one day they kill this old man's beloved dog, and then the kids get what's coming to them.  It's a nice movie - not one of the year's best - but the kind of movie that would never have come to my part of Houston. 

Last night I watched Monsters - a shocking movie if you consider it was made for $15K.  It was another nice movie.  At times it seemed like it was trying too hard to send a message, but there are several scenes that are very magnetic.  I know this movie will be compared to District 9, which is understandable.  They both play to the same tunes, though District 9 looks and feels cleaner. 

Like District 9, Monsters excels at showing the viewer modern-day carnage and attributing it to something fantastical - in this case, the Creatures - giant daikaiju aliens that have taken over most of Northern Mexico.  At one point in the movie, however, I was looking at the carnage and I thought "man, that looks like Bolivar/Galveston from after Hurricane Ike."  Once the credits rolled, it was confirmed:  A special thanks to Galveston. 

It was weird seeing wrecked neighborhoods played up as attacked by giant monsters.  Not to try and get too metaphorical (??? - MetaPHYSICAL Maybe?) about it all, but I do think that by using actual footage, movies like District 9 and Monsters are trying to say something about the carnage wrecked on humanity.  In District 9, it is the atrocities of humanity on humanity.  In Monsters, it is the crimes of nature on mankind, so I guess it is appropriate that a location that was razed by a hurricane is used in the film.  It was just a little unsettling.  Maybe that's a good thing.