[TADFF 2019 Review] Making Monsters

Do you remember that insufferable YouTube channel PrankvsPrank, where a couple got millions of subscribers and billions of views being complete assholes to each other? Well, they broke up in 2016 because, it turns out, making a career out of harassing each other kind of creates a toxic relationship. Whodathunk? 

The names might be different, but the protagonists of Making Monsters are similarly in a relationship based around the male character constantly terrorizing his now-fiance. They obviously didn’t get the message from 2016 because while their journey might be slightly different, they are cruising for a rude awakening in this wildly uneven horror movie cum satire. 

It starts with a man running, naked and bleeding, through an empty field before the music crescendos as a masked person on a four wheeler gives chase. Using a variety of weapons and techniques, including a sniper rifle and a nasty-looking curved sword, the masked killer dismembers the running man and then drags him behind his four wheeler off screen.

Well, ok then. 

Meanwhile, YouTuber Chris Brand (Tim Loden) is busy terrorizing his fiance Allison (Alana Elmer) as she looks at wedding dresses. “You got Branded!” he shouts to a hidden camera, but Allison is tired of this shit. She wants a baby and to not be a forty year old prankster. He wants to continue raking in the money and subscribers (now over 10 million). It’s a problem that comes to a head when they go to an IVF doctor who says the procedure will cost $28k and that Allison’s body can’t be under any duress. Which means: no pranks.

A chance encounter with Jessie (King Chiu), who bought a church out in the country and converted it to a sprawling home with his own fiance, has the couple deciding to take a vacation. A prank-free weekend, reconnecting with Jessie. Except when they show up Jessie is running late and his fiance David (Jonathan Craig) greets them with overwhelming awkwardness. He meets them at the door, wearing giant monster slippers and is overly affectionate. 

The house, outside of it being a church, is also overly odd. Jessie is a horror make-up artist and his home is littered with horror memorabilia and paraphernalia. As they’re waiting for Jessie, they ultimately drink a mushroom tea concoction, have a wild night of partying and end up waking up...four days later. The house is empty. The power’s out. The heater isn’t working and Chris and Allison are all alone...

There’s a lot more going on than in my description above, though. Allison comes from a long line of mystical people. Her grandfather was a water dowser and five of her aunts are mediums. She herself starts seeing things, creepy monsters that aren’t there and things that attack and pull at her. David, meanwhile, is doing his best Mark Duplass-in-Creep impersonation throughout the first act before he abruptly disappears.

There’s a lot going on.

It goes in some odd directions and the competing tones and mysteries feel at odds with each other. It worked at its best when it was skirting the line between reality and prank. But all of the tension that would normally bring is immediately diffused with the violent opening. We know it's not a prank. We know shit is going south. We're just waiting for the cast to catch up. 

A couple moments really sold the terror, including a sequence near the end that had the characters piecing together what is really happening and the danger they are actually in. But too much of the middle movie is wasted and the drama between the two leads felt hamfisted at best. 

Reception has been mixed so far with some people digging its off-kilter sensibilities. It unfortunately just didn't work for me.