Pros: None Cons: The writing: Infantile writing by typical hollywood children. The child is the adult and the adult is the child. Pace: Why don't we just dddddrrrraaaaggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg everything out to the 1,000,000 degree since we've got nothing of value to say. Flashbacks? In a horror flick? This was just plain stupid. stupid. stupid. Added nothing to this dumb effort. This writer is not capable of doing a decent flashback in the best of times.Hey but if you want to waste 91 minutes, go for it.

6 1/2Two distinct souls coexist in the same movie : we have the complicated relationship background between mother and daughter, which is very touching and wisely built, and the horror/slasher counterpart, that is definitely less thought out, rougher and conventional. All in all, they tend to mash up pretty well, converging in the end in a cathartic epilogue, but there's some flaws along the way that kinda lower the level.

Here's a Fresh Meat review of "The Monster" (R - 2016 - US)...Better than I thought!!Genre: Horror/Monster My Score: 6.2Cast=3 Acting=8 Plot=7 Ending=6 Story=5 Scare=6 Jump=5 F/X=8 Monster=8 Gore=6A mother and daughter set out on a road trip and hit an animal. With their car inoperable and stranded in the middle of nowhere...the creature they hit begins hunting them."My mom tells me there's no such thing as monsters...but she is wrong." It starts out slow and frustrating...like waiting two hours to get your food when all you ordered was a breakfast burrito. But after all the hesitations and false starts, the fit really hits the shan and the brutality increases (see how I switched that?) to an enjoyable level. The cinematics were dark and rainy, but the monster was pretty cool. The daughter made the movie for me, but Scott Speedman had nothing more than a cameo. If you can suffer through the first half, the second half is a good watch.

Lizzy (Ella Ballentine) is being taken to her dad's house by someone who was not the prefect mom (Zoe Kazan). The film starts off showing us Lizzy is a well adjusted daughter considering her alcoholic mother who is less than understanding. They encounter difficulty along the road on a rainy night...in need of a tow truck and ambulance to fill the time. Yes there is a "monster" that we do get to see as Elizabeth has flashbacks to her life, none of which was good.This is a well acted film. You feel the intensity of the relationship between mother and daughter, as well as the sadness. With the various details and aspects at work, Bryan Bertino (director/writer) has turned a good jump scare story into a metaphor of facing and conquering our own monster in order to move on.Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.