Your Monster – Horror Movie Review

Your Monster – Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

Melissa Barrera (Scream, In the Heights, Abigail) stars in Caroline Lindy’s hilarious and charming romantic-comedy-horror Your Monster, a modern day, feminist fairytale set in the world of musical theatre.

After battling an illness and being dumped by the love of her life, struggling actress Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) returns to her childhood home to recover. But to her horror, she discovers a monster (Tommy Dewey) living in her bedroom closet. Turns out he’s quite the charmer.

Over time, they forge an unlikely connection as Monster helps Laura stand up to her controlling ex and fight for the lead role in his show that was promised to her. Laura and Monster’s relationship slowly grows into something more as she rediscovers her power and learns to unleash her long-suppressed rage.

Directed by Caroline Lindy, Your Monster stars Melissa Barrera, Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus), Tommy Dewey (Saturday Night), Edmund Donovan (Civil War) and Kayla Foster (Call Jane).

Your Monster is in UK and Ireland cinemas 29 November from Vertigo Releasing

Often, the most useful way to revisit the worst moments in a life is through horror or comedy. Genre lets us distance ourselves from the truth of a situation. That people are often selfish and even evil, and that the world can be bone crushingly lonely and cruel. With laughter or screams while still acknowledging that reality. Surviving it, even.

Writer/director Caroline Lindy navigates a blend of genre. Comedy, drama, musical, romance, horror—with a clever “beauty and the beast” tale that acknowledges that each of us can be our own beauty and our own beast. Life may work best that way for everyone. Except Jacob.

But Jacob’s a dick.

Lindy expertly montages us through the backstory. Laura (Melissa Barrera, Abigail) and Jacob (Edmund Donovan) are a cute couple working together on a musical. Laura will be the lead and she’s overcome with joy. Then there’s a cancer diagnosis, then a hospital room breakup that ends with Laura sobbing after a fleeing Jacob as she grips the IV stand she’s dragged to the hospital hallway.

Without Jacob’s apartment to return to, bestie Mazie (Kayla Foster) drops Laura at the house she grew up in. Where she will cry her way through many boxes of tissues as she eats her way through many boxes of snacks, all along. Except for the monster (Tommy Dewey, Saturday Night’s Michael O’Donoghue) who used to be under her bed. And who’s grown used to having the place to himself.

From here, Lindy does an exceptional job of disguising a brilliant journey of self-discovery as a New York romcom about a budding actress denied her Broadway debut by her gaslighting ex.

Barrera’s never been better and Dewey strikes the perfect balance between ferocious beast and supportive buddy.

The metaphor is perfect. So much so that a lot of viewers may see right past it and believe this is, indeed, the story of a woman who falls in love with a ferociously loyal monster. And that’s fine. If you want a musical theater romance, Your Monster delivers.

But it’s Lindy’s crafty subversion of all those tropes, and her game cast’s spot-on characterizations within this genre mashup. That makes the film—and, in particular, the final scene—so wickedly satisfying.