User reviews

It follows a horror formula of the 80's slasher movies. There is the shy heroine with the mysterious past, the BBF who is overprotective, and the school bully who is just there to be mean for the sake of meanness in a High School with the world's oldest teenagers. I caught myself giggling at the cheesy but reasonably good special effects and best of all there was no CGI that I could tell of. This is one of those movies that you can't take too seriously because it's obvious that it was using a low budget. Would I watch it again? Probably not, but it was a good watch and it killed a bit of nostalgia I felt of the 80's.

Ok. So it's not gonna win many awards for acting .......saying that the main characters are great.....just a few supporting actors (namely the father!) make this feel more like a Media Collage level project.

The old school practical effects were great to see and you can just tell it was a real labour of love for all involved making the various creatures and gore effects. Low low budget but with lots of heart. Plenty of Evil Dead influence throughout but with a more British sense of humour that works in most places. Under a more experienced director the scenes could have had the tension that it was lacking, but that will come in time. A fun way to spend 80mins...... Switch off the brain and enjoy the blood. One good thing is that they didn't go into the realm of shoddy after effects cgi (except the explosion) like a lot of budget films do and kept it practical with inventive monster designs (except the Djinn which was Poundland Halloween level. Ha .

Well done to all involved. Teens will love it. Pretty girls, blood and........well more blood. p.s...... I was actually left wanting to see further adventures of the female trio of monster slayers......which is rare.

I feel this movie has good intentions made by lovers of the genre , but may have bitten more off than they can chew. I think meant to come off like a film in the vein of Evil Dead, Brain dead & Night of the Demons, is actually more comparable to the movie 'The Spookies' What works.

• Loads of inventive (albeit low budget) gore effects. People getting torn in half, heads getting torn off , it's all in here. But it's not sickening gore, but fun gore if that makes sense
• The movie is very fast paced. You will not be bored, there is always something going on. Ultimately means you will not get bored in this movie
• The actress who plays Mona, is very good in this movie

-The LGBT angle is integrated very well. The main character just happens to be gay, but it's treated just as a matter of fact and does't get preachy or nor does it fall into sterotypes

• It's visually very ambitious , trying to make a splatter creature feature movie

But what does't work

• It might have ambition in the visuals, but the story is actually very pedestrian . Teens get attacked by monsters at a party and have to survive . not much more too it than that
• As i alluded to earlier, they may have bitten off more than they can chew. The monster effects are pretty poor. Literally looking like someone in a homemade Halloween costume.
• The acting isn't great. Our main protagonist actress doesn't seem to be able to emote , and gives one of the most unenthusiastic performances of a lead character that i recall seeing. But it's not just her, others are like that too. Then some actors are just bad actors.
• There is virtually no characterization in this movie. Our main character gets a bit of background, but we still don't see what she is really like. Her two friends, one of them doesn't even get to really speak until the monsters show up
• Very little world building & plot holes. To demonstrate this , I'm just gonna talk about the prologue to avoid spoilers, but this type of thing can be applied to the rest of the movie too. So mild spoilers ahead for the opening scene

We just have to accept that the mother is some kind of monster hunter, with no context as to why , how , what that means etc. Within the logic of this movie, she is reading bedtime stories to her young daughter directly from a ancient demon summoning book ( doesn't seem like great parenting does it ) . Then it alludes to , she's somehow summoned a monster under her daughter's bed ( if not, are we to believe it's been hanging around there all the time?). Then the movie contradicts it's self later by saying the monsters are summoned via the blood of a virgin, when that's not what happened in the prologue . So you get what i'm saying, this movie needed to have a 2nd script draft, or as i see in so many times in indie movies, someone else outside of production to test it on, who isn't just gonna say yes, yes, yes, because they are either employed of friends with the film makers

Overall, this movie does have some fun with the carnage and is enjoyable on a basic level. This isn't a 10 out of 10 as some of the 'cough' "Genuine" 'cough' reviews indicate, but nor is it a 1 out of 10 either. Fun but very flawed

Eight year old Sophie loses her mum to an evil supernatural creature that has manifested from an occult book. Ten years later, Dad goes out and she hosts a party for her 18th birthday. Among the uninvited guests is a sultry redhead who seduces a geeky guy, in fact she uses him as a human sacrifice to bring the creatures from said book alive and cause bloody carnage at the party. The first part of the movie is fun, it is fast paced, gory and often funny. I am glad that the makers went for physical special effects rather than CGI, I think considering the obvious low budget that they did a passable job. Second half slows down, it drops much of the humour in favour of scares , only it is more silly than scary. The "teens" in this movie are played by actors who look well into their twenties, sadly this has been going on for decades in movies, just look at Grease (1978)! None of the performances are exactly Oscar worthy but I did like the character of Beth, a very attractive Goth chick. Sophie uses a chainsaw as her weapon of choice against the monsters, it is one of those that has stationary teeth when being used, ha, ha! As a Brit myself I will always champion British movies, as modern horror flicks go this one offers something different to the abundance of slasher, zombie and haunting films, which is to be welcomed. Book is a fairly enjoyable film but one that I would be unlikely to watch again.

I normally enjoy a low budget British film with quirky humour but this was so disappointing I really struggled to make it to the end.

It's clearly a bit of a low budget 80's homage movie, heavy on the blood, gore and screaming. No CGI but some fun 'monster' costumes and prosthetics.

One of the main problems was that the teenage characters were clearly played by more mature, late 20's to 30's, actors and actresses. The characters had a few good lines but on the whole the script was mediocre, as was the acting. I honestly had the feeling that they were just reading straight off the script, without learning lines, as there didn't seem to be any depth to the performances. The main character seemed a bit ineffectual and was upstaged by her 'sidekicks'.

I think perhaps this movie tried to incorporate too many ideas; Monsters, witchcraft, mean girls, lesbianism, role reversal etc. So that the film became a bit muddied in its story telling.

Although not the worst movie I have seen I certainly wouldn't recommend it when there are so many others that are far better.

It is not an extraordinary horror film but it is still watchable. The acting is quite decent. Sometimes the film has unexpected highs and sometimes incomprehensible lows. The humour is not very original but digestible.

I must admit that I had somewhat expected or hoped for more than that "Book of Monsters" turned out to be. I was initially enticed by the movie's cover/poster, and thought this might actually be a movie worth watching. I had that particular vibe to it, that it would be an indie movie of sorts that would sneak under the radar and turn out to be rather enjoyable.

Truth of the matter was that the movie was mediocre at best. It should be said that writer Paul Butler definitely tried and put together a fair enough storyline. But director Stewart Sparke just didn't really manage to bring the movie to life in a particular fulfilling manner for me. And the entire movie just felt half-hearted; like a low budget movie with big ambitions.

The story was fairly simple, to the point of being too simple actually, because the audience are never really fully brought into the concept and what is really going on, and why the monsters come to life - except because it being for Sophie's 18th birthday. And as such, then it felt like a crucial and vital part of the movie had been left out.

The characters in the movie were fairly flaccid and most of them lacked personality all together, which meant that you didn't really care if people were mauled, killed or whatever. It was just another cardboard cutout person in the gallery.

The creatures were fairly okay, at least in concept idea. But they definitely bore witness to this not being a massive million dollar budget movie. And again that added to the whole low budget feel that permeated the movie.

All in all fairness, then this felt like a well-accomplished low budget movie. And it definitely felt like the people were having fun making the movie. But when you sit down to watch a proper movie and be properly entertained, you might just find yourself having drawn the short end of the stick here. My rating of "Book of Monsters" is a very mediocre five out of ten stars. The movie came in under my radar and I happened to come across it by sheer random luck. The movie failed to impress me and didn't leave any lasting impression, so it will vanish into oblivion as quietly as it evaded me initially.

If you don't act armchair critic, you may just enjoy the movie. Yes it's a bit silly, but it's not trying to be the next Gladiator, it just is what it is.

The plain Jane lead grates, some of her co-stars are more fun to watch in their hammy over-the-top portrayals. I liked the Britishness of it, and some of the deaths are amusing to watch for the low budget schlocks. Gets boring fast though, could easily have been a 30 minute short. Edit: ok I saw the last half of it again tonight as it's running on Sky Cinema currently. I liked it a bit better this time as it has a good spirit about it. It does look like a University Film department made film, and has an awful soundtrack, but I've upped my rating from a 4 to a 5/10 as they looked like they were having fun in the process.