LITTLE MONSTERS [Film Review]

By now everybody knows that the zombie film is essentially dead. Yet every few years somebody comes along and tweaks the genre just enough to keep it shuffling along. Over the years we’ve had fast zombies (Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead), zombie romances (Warm Bodies), zombie pub crawls (Shaun of the Dead), zombie musicals (Dead and Breakfast), zombies on trains (Train to Busan), and Cuban refuge zombies (Juan of the Dead), to name a few. And now, thanks to the delightfully debased, yet sublimely sweet Little Monsters, the genre gets another off-beat and entertaining boost.

Falling nicely into the zom com sub-genre, this ditty from Down Under manages to inject a little life into the by now rote zombie cinematic routine. Imagine Kindergarten Cop crossed with Night of the Living Dead and you’ll get a pretty good idea of where this film is coming from and where it’s going. Toss in a bit of Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy and you’re good to go. But it transcends these comparisons thanks to some good, old-fashioned, in-your-face Aussie humor, not to mention some damn fine acting, and lots of ukulele accompanied singing. The comedic timing and overall swift pacing don’t hurt, either.

The quick summary of the film is thus: a group of kindergarten-aged school children go on a field trip to a petting zoo/put-put golf park and get overrun by zombies. To say any more would reveal too much and spoil the fun. Borrowing elements from George Romero’s classic canon (specifically Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead) as well as the twisted satiric slant first displayed in the granddaddy of zom coms, Return of the Living Dead, and mixing it liberally with equal parts crude humor and heart-on-the-sleeve sentimentality, screenwriter/director Abe Forsythe for the most part, turns a hodge-podge of clichés and familiar tropes into a winning combination of laughs, tears, and tension. To wit, I laughed my ass off for the first 30-minutes, found myself on the edge of my seat during what should have been a trite and predictable sequence of events at the heart of the film, and I even shed a tear or two towards the end. For a zomedy to elicit such a wide range of emotions means that all involved did something right.

While Forsythe's quick wit and brisk manner keep things lively, the two leads-- Lupita Nyong’o (Us) and Alexander England (Alien: Covenant)-- really anchor the film by displaying wonderful comedic timing, great chemistry, and some not-half-bad singing. Nyong’o’s character is a proper school marm, while England plays the classic man-child who grows up considerably through the course of the film. Sure, the archetypes are cliché, but each actor owns their character and instills them with a sense of multi-dimensional realism. And then there’s Diesel La Torraca.  As Felix, the main “little monster”, he is sublime. His off-kilter demeanor and display of a kid’s sense of wonder and nonchalance is fantastic; I mean he is a kid, but to do all of this unintentionally funny kid behavior onscreen takes some talent. If there is any fault to the story it might be that the other kids in the film are seriously side-lined, coming off as standard one-dimensional characters (the fat kid, the crippled kid, the nondescript kid, etc.). In addition, Josh Gad offers up a relentless and over-the-top portrayal of a kid’s television host. Granted, we’ve seen this self-centered douchebag character before, but despite the unoriginality, it still provides a wee bit of comic relief.

While not really bringing anything new to the zombie table, Little Monsters at least has a trio of fantastic actors at the core, more laugh-out-loud moments than I can recall encountering in any recent comedy, and it proves, without a doubt that surviving the zombie apocalypse ain’t shit when compared to teaching (ie wrangling) a classroom of 5 year olds. Oh yeah, and it just might make you a fan of Taylor Swift and Neil Diamond in the bargain.

Currently streaming on HULU

Rating: 3.5/5

RIYL

Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse; Shaun of the Dead; Dead and Breakfast; Kindergarten Cop; Big Daddy;