Love in the Time of Monsters (2014) … Watch Out for That Toxic Waste!!
Here’s a film with a really fun premise, good performances, some fun gore, and which has a decent premise. So why am I not raving about Love in the Time of Monsters and telling you all to run out and see this? Well, when a ninety-seven minute movie feels like it is three hours long, there’s, unfortunately, a problem. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Love in the Time of Monsters takes place at a resort deep in the woods. The resort is run by Slavko (Michael McShane), an Eastern European immigrant who loves America so much that he decided to take everything great about this country and jam them all into on resort. The Result? We get a family-oriented resort that has everything from American presidents, Elvis, and even Bigfoot represented. That’s right, families can take a tour of the grounds and “come into contact with” Bigfoot. Lou, played by horror icon Kane Hodder, is the head of the costumed Bigfoots and it is his job to keep them all in line. But between all the drinking and smoking weed, Lou’s job is pretty difficult.
When the group of Bigfoot actors come across and fall into a lake that is highly polluted with toxic waste and other illegally dumped chemicals, the all mutate into real monsters …. wearing Bigfoot costumes. Like I mention above, this is a really fun plot, but the writing here isn’t really up to the challenge. The film takes too long to get started that you almost forget that you’re watching a horror film (it plays more like a teen comedy at first). Once the film gets going, though, it gets pretty fun as the creatures start to attack the resort patrons. There’s a little bit of gore, but most of the good stuff is done off screen.
When there was about forty-five minutes left in the film, I completely lost interest in what was going on. The story suddenly became full of sub-plots and side stories which really had nothing to do with the main story. All these sub-plots did was take away from the fun and brought the entire film to a screeching halt. I’m still amazed this film is only ninety-seven minutes!! All the extra side stories really felt like an attempt by writer Michael Skvarla to stretch the film out to ninety minutes.
Love in the Time of Monsters has it’s heart in the right place, but either the script needed another go through, or the film needed another round through the editing process. In other words, the filmmakers here needed to shave off about fifteen minutes and tighten this bad boy up. Some films work perfectly as a short film, and Love in the Time of Monsters would be one of those films. A solid idea that is mired in too many sub-plots and unnecessary side stories.
But guys mutated by toxic waste wearing Bigfoot costumes? Pretty brilliant idea.
My Summary:
Director: Matt Jackson
Plot: 2 out of 5 stars
Gore: 4 out of 10 skulls
Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains
Reviewed by Scott Shoyer
Stay Bloody!!!
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