Review #141: Little Monsters (2019)


This review was originally written in October 2021.

October 2021 Horror Movie Review #27- Little Monsters (2019)

I was so confused watching this movie. Where's Fred Savage? Where's Howie Mandel? Nobody went under a single bed in the entire runtime!

...Just kidding. I only knew about this movie because I saw it on several "top 10 zombie movies" lists, so I went in with basically no expectations except that it was going to be good. I'm not sure what I WAS expecting, but whatever that was, I'm not sure I got it. This movie clearly started as a very specific story pitch- "What if a group of school children were caught in a zombie outbreak and their teacher had to try and distract them so they didn't realize they were in danger"- and then the finished product didn't stray very far from that premise. In that way, it succeeded? I guess?

The thing is, I can tell this was meant to be a comedy (at least partially). I could see all of the intended humor, I could understand all of the jokes, and so on. Unfortunately, basically none of it landed for me- I could tell the filmmakers expected me to be rolling on the floor laughing at this silly premise, with the kids' TV show host pooping himself and talking about how he slept with all of the kids' moms and so on, but I dunno, I just didn't find any of it funny. It's not even that the humor was bad, or poorly-written, or anything, it's just that none of it struck a chord with me.

Overall I think this is a fun movie, well-written and well-acted, but it doesn't really do anything new or noteworthy beyond the initial premise. I was genuinely interested as to how they were going to use the revelation that the zombies were apparently susceptible to music and/or being treated like school children (were they sentient? could they use this to save humanity?) but then all of the zombies get killed like ten seconds later so it literally doesn't matter. There's also the problem of the fact that it takes about twenty-five minutes before ANYTHING zombie-related shows up on-screen- I know this is largely meant to be more of a comedy/romantic comedy rather than a zombie film, but still, twenty-five minutes passed before I was even positive I was watching the right movie.

It's definitely worth a watch, but it won't be at the top of any lists I make anytime soon.

Overall Rating: 6/10 Staples In The Face

Surprise Casting: I knew Teddy McGiggles' voice sounded familiar! He voiced Olaf in Frozen. What a difference in roles!

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