There Are Monsters (2008) User Reviews

Effective mix of creepy atmosphere and jump scares (SPOILERS)

[bob the moo · 22 December 2013]

Despite the efforts of the other user who left a comment on this title, I knew nothing about this film when I watched it and this is probably the best way to come to it. The film opens with a man reading about the hadron collider online while his wife prepares for a dinner party. Out of the window she sees a young girl standing motionless staring into the woods behind their house; the girl is wearing a red coat just in case you are not already visually clued in to how creepy this is. From here several other odd things occur but I'll let you work them out yourselves.

The film does several things very well. Firstly it sets the atmosphere really well so that you are creeped out and on edge just from small things. On top of this it throws several very creepy moments and one of two very good jump scares – one in particular which sent me backwards in my chair to get away from the screen. I was glad of this because the opening "moving through the woods" shot seemed a bit cheap and obvious but the unnerving atmosphere is the thing that works. It is not all perfect though, the party scene is too close to the end and the conclusion of the film has perhaps too much build up in it. The actors show their limits as well – in particular the guy playing the husband.

Despite this though the atmosphere is unnerving and unsettling while the jump scare moments work very well in this context. I know it is currently being finished as a feature length film, which would be interesting to see how well it works over 90 minutes, but for sure as a short film it is very effective for what it does.

A poor attempt at psychological horror.

[ashturner-79373 · 1/10 · 29 January 2019]

There are a couple of good things in this horror short. The opening shot of someone's perspective in the snowy woods is nice, bright with daylight yet unsettling. Then there's the first jump-scare, which is pulled off really well thanks to blunt sound design and very sharp editing. The piece of score that recurs throughout is also foreboding.

Unfortunately, everything else sucks. The acting is pretty awkward and that dinner scene is just unnatural, with badly-written and badly-delivered dialogue: "There ARE monsters ... and they ARE coming to get me". The scene in the shop is also very stilted, and it doesn't help that the thing we're supposed to be unnerved by is a silly-looking "creepy" grin.

Aside from that lovely opening shot the camerawork is usually very ugly, constantly zooming and focusing in and out, particularly on people's faces but also on silly things like a half-empty glass of wine or that black hole article the husband is reading. A lame Photoshop effect is used to give the monster-people scary faces, which looks laughably obvious.

No explanation is given for the events, but ambiguity isn't automatically a good thing - the horror of not knowing has to be earned, and this short really doesn't earn it. I feel like the black hole article was only shown as a way of avoiding exposition, but that somehow feels just as lazy as spoon-feeding the answer to us in dialogue.

A pretty bad effort overall, and despite pulling one off pretty effectively earlier, the short ends with a hilarious jump-scare complete with demon face and monster sound effect. Perfect.

1/10.

There are creepy things going on here.

[Aaron1375 · 8/10 · 14 June 2010]

This film really had me going in a couple of places. A very well made short horror film whose only flaw is that party scene that kind of stalled the film a bit. Before that all these strange goings on were happening and some nice scary scenes. The one with the little girl on the porch freaked me out, but then nothing creeps me out more than a spooky child. The plot is simple, a wife is getting ready for a party and she needs the husband to go get some ice cream for the pie. Well during this time a kid appears in the backyard with her back to the house looking at the woods. Then she runs off. The man goes for the ice cream and the little girl returns to the back porch. Meanwhile, the guy is going into a shop with a very strange clerk who is most insistent that he get some ice cream in the back of the store as his looks a bit melted. He wisely refuses and then they are at the party where he recounts his tale to his friends and one of them has their own spooky tale to tell. Well it then flashes to after the party and there is one more chilling thing that is going to occur. Granted it was a bit predictable, but it was still rather disconcerting. This was a very well shot short horror movie. It had good atmosphere especially at the beginning with the snow and some nice scares. Its main problem is the party where nothing really happens. This one could easily be extended to a full movie as I would love to see what the makers of this film had on their minds, however the dangers of that is that they will over explain what is happening and it will lose the great impact this short had.