Love And Monsters is a post-apocalyptic comedy about a a young man named Joel (Dylan O’Brien), who has been living in a small underground colony for the past seven years ever since monsters have overrun the planet. In the colony, he can’t help but feel somewhat inadequate. Not only is he encouraged to stay behind whenever the crew goes on supply runs because he’s not considered brave enough, but since everyone else is in a relationship, his sense of loneliness is increased. However, he isn’t totally alone. He often talks to Aimee (Jessica Henwick) through the radio. She was his girlfriend from back before the world went south, and she’s now on a coastal colony 80 miles away.

One day, wanting to really take control of his life, and wanting to reconnect with the love of his life, he decides to go to the surface, and go on a journey to get to the colony where Aimee is residing. He’s obviously not cut out for surviving the treachery of the monster infested world, but the journey becomes a little less lonely when he comes across a dog simply named Boy, who becomes his companion, and he later bumps into two survivors, Clyde (Michael Rooker) and Minnow (Ariana Greenblatt), who help provide some insight on all the things he will need to know to survive.

When watching it, a film that might come to mind is something like Zombieland, which similarly brought an irreverent vibe to the post-apocalyptic genre. Love And Monsters is a film that is aimed a skosh younger, with its PG-13 rating, and it also has an earnestness that you wouldn’t find in Zombieland. That is probably my favorite aspect of the film. It’s a sincere adventure film that takes a fairly simple premise, and explores it in a way that is able to stand on its own, and not seem all too concerned about setting up a franchise as most big genre films tend to be nowadays.

The film, which is directed by Michael Matthews, who co-wrote it with Brian Duffield, is a sleek and visually engaging production. There is a number of VFX heavy shots, and the work put into the monsters are incredibly strong. They fit well into their environments, they have a sense of weight, and they’re appropriately icky. And I’m happy to say that it’s really great to see an American monster movie where the monster designs are actually really cool, and not just another rip-off of the Cloverfield monster.

Dylan O’Brien is an actor I know has had quite the history on TV through teen wolf, but my only awareness of him is through his film work from stuff like the Maze Runner films and American Assassin. He’s seems to have largely been known to have led serious, action heavy films, often in the broody variety. Here, he gets a chance to not only stretch his comedic muscles, but also portray a character who is a bit of a klutz, who is awkward, fearful, and struggles to make his way through the extreme circumstances that he keeps throwing himself in. Other players like Rooker, Greenblatt, Henwick, and Dan Ewing, who appears late in the film, all deliver solid work, but it’s ultimately O’Brien’s show.

I was thoroughly charmed by Love And Monsters. For all its post-apocalyptic indulgences, it’s a surprisingly sweet and heartfelt adventure that arguably falls back on one too many familiar tropes, but it does it with so much gusto and humor that it all comes together really well. It builds a fascinating and colorful world for our characters to inhabit without getting too lost in all the details. It has a number of memorable characters and scenes. One in particular that I loved was an ecounter that Joel had with a robot called Mav1s. It’s nice to see a genre film with a modest budget that isn’t based on a book or a comic. There’s a lot of fun to be had with this, from its engaging action sequences to the very charming and vulnerable lead performance from Dylan O’Brien, who is able to carry the film almost entirely on his own with ease. It’s an enjoyable crowd-pleaser about overcoming self-doubts, and learning to find strength within yourself, a common theme, but one that this film explores with a lot of heart. There’s perhaps only a handful of films I’ve seen since the pandemic started that I wished I got to see on the big screen with a big audience, and this was one. Watching at home will have to do, and it’s one I encourage you to check out.

 

Love And Monsters is out in select theaters and VOD platforms.