Well, it's easy to describe this movie. What Wes Craven's SCREAM was to the slasher-movies, MONSTER! is to monster-movies in general. It's an enjoyable spoof that first explains the rules of the genre and than plays with them. M. Emmet Walsh plays Lloyd Reeves, a local movie-hero who has starred in one too many monster-movie. He gets released from the hospital and his son is there to take care of him for a while. But at that same time teenagers begin to disappear and turn up dead. Lloyd is convinced that a monster is terrorizing the town. A monster which returns every three years. Could that be true, or is Lloyd finally losing it himself?
M. Emmet Walsh is a lot of fun as the determined Lloyd Reeves, who constantly refers to his legendary film rolls in monster-movies. It's also fun to see almost everything he predicts, come true (because he knows the rules of the genre). The rest of the cast is decent but rather forgettable. The film moves at a fairly fast pace and is as well a parody on as a homage to the entire monster-genre. The monster, which we do get to see near the end, is a bit silly and made out of pretty bad CGI (think Playstation 1 graphics). But it didn't bother me at all, 'cause this is a spoof after all. And a fun one it is.
So, you can easily program this movie as the first of a triple-feature monster-movie night, to lighten up the audience. But you can also watch it on a rainy Sunday afternoon with the kids, since there's no nudity or real violence in it. You can pop open a beer and poor in some hot choco-milk for the kids and than enjoy this silly monster-spoof.
