Mon Mon Mon Monsters

An unpredictable, unique, often brutal and intense little gem. Listed as a horror/comedy but perhaps the humor was lost in translation?

Very disturbing and hard to watch at times, but has a pretty interesting and unique plot.

Just love this flick. Is that title supposed to be like the old Casper cartoons? Every time somebody saw Casper they would shout, "Gho gho gho ghost!" Like, if I saw a monster, I might very well shout, "Mon mon mon monster!" Anyway, these monsters are great. They're a sister team of ghouls who live under the city. They catch homeless men and eat them. Then, when a gang of thugs is sentenced to community service by their teacher, they go down into the belly of the beast and catch the younger of the two ghouls, after they abuse the very homeless they were sent to help. They chain up the little one and bring her to their hangout, an abandoned pool. Once there they torture the ghoulet mercilessly. This is the story of how our hero, the abused member of the gang, finally wakes up and figures out who the real ghouls are.

This one came as a complete surprise to me: behind the rather playful title lies an unexpectedly harrowing, mean-spirited and nihilistic tale that leaves quite the emotional impact.

Lin Shu-wei (Yu-Kai Teng) is an unpopular high-school student who faces daily bullying from his classmates and a lack of empathy from his teacher. When Shu-wei is accused of stealing money, he is given community service, along with three of his most cruel tormenters, led by callous classmate Duan Ren-hao (Kent Tsai). Sent to work at an old people's home, the class bullies abuse the pensioners, with Shu-wei joining in, relieved to not be the target of the torture for a change.

One night, the four teenagers sneak into the home to steal a locked case belonging to an elderly ex-soldier, believing it to contain valuables. During the burglary, the lads encounter a ghoulish flesh-eating girl that chases them out of the building, only for her to be knocked down by a car (which promptly drives away). Taking the creature to their hideout, the bullies set about inflicting pain upon their prisoner, with Shu-wei a reluctant participant. Meanwhile, the cannibalistic kiddie's older sister is on the hunt for her missing sibling...

With almost no genuinely sympathetic characters, the message of Mon Mon Mon Monsters is that humans are the real monsters. We lose much of our sympathy for Shu-wei when he joins in with the bullies, his teacher is heartless, the driver of the car that hits the little girl immediately flees the scene, and Ren-hao and his pals are sociopaths. For some, this will mean that the film will prove too much to handle, but for those who enjoy disturbing cinema, this is a well-directed treat that keeps on surprising, right down to the bitter end.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

It's probably not a good idea to either capture a monster...or make one.

I love to go into a movie as cold as I can, and the barely little I saw of this led me to believe this would be a kiddie monster movie for fun, like The Monster Squad. Oh, hell no. I'm guessing this is "supposed" to contain "humor," but this gets dark, fast and gruesome, just for adults.

This is NOT for kids. Even if it mainly stars them.

Bullied student - and not just by his peers, gets to join his closes adversaries for the day and while he wants to be accepted, he realizes, slowly how dark, disturbed and horrific they can be. And then a monster shows up.

They capture said monster, or at least, one half of a pair that doesn't like to be separated from each other. NOT a good idea.

Just like I like to go in cold into a film, I've only given you 1/100th of the movie and there's so much more you can explore. And needless to say, you'll experience more than you bargained for.

I loved the originality, the acting, film-making, but not so much the fake CGI and CGI blood - one of my biggest pet peeves as of late. It's lazy, cheap and beneath any real filmmaker. Do it practical or up your CGI budget to real filmmaking standards.

As mentioned, this gets dark and once the movie remotely starts to dim...there's no going back. So, if you like that, buckle in and enjoy the ride.

***

Final thoughts: School's out. Time to start learning some lessons. Well, the audience anyways.