Your Monster (2024)
Beauty and the Beast
There have been some interesting genre mashups recently, but Your Monster is one of the most unique. This horror musical romcom stars Melissa Barrera as Laura Franco, an up and coming actress and singer. Laura is dating Jacob (Edmund Donovan), a playwright.
She’s about to appear in the starring role of his upcoming play. Unfortunately, her life is upended when she receives a cancer diagnosis.
There is one scene in Your Monster that stunned me with its raw power. Jacob breaks up with Laura while she’s hospitalized. A devastated Laura staggers out of her hospital room and tries to pursue Jacob down the hall, desperately begging him not to leave her.
He walks away and a nurse helps the sobbing Laura back to her room. This scene horrified me so much that I forgot I was watching a movie for a few seconds. Barrera gives the performance of her career.
Franco recovers from cancer, but her heartbreak endures. After leaving the hospital, she moves back in to her childhood home. Laura’s life is forever changed, again, when she is reunited with a hairy human-sized monster from her childhood.
He’s apparently been lurking inside her old house all these years. Monster (Tommy Dewey) is confident and assertive, qualities that Laura is sorely lacking.
A Predictable But Powerful Horror Romance
Laura is terrified at first, but she warms up to the surprisingly charming monster. She even begins to have feelings for this shaggy man-beast. He’s not conventionally attractive, but at least he’s not a sociopathic narcissist like her ex.
Still, part of her wants to reconcile with Jacob, who has started dating one of her play co-stars. The Beast, who truly loves Laura, is disgusted at the prospect of Franco going back to her insufferable ex.
I didn’t find the film’s musical numbers particularly memorable. Melissa Barrera does her best with a series of bland pop songs. I’m generally not a fan of musicals (or pop music), so these scenes may work better for people who enjoy this stuff.
The story proceeds exactly as you think it will, but the movie has plenty of fun along the way. Barrera is effective at playing her innocent, naive character. Laura is very different from Sam in Scream. I like the range that Barrera shows here. She’s come a long way as an actress.
Laura’s character arc is satisfying. She starts off as a weak-minded people pleaser who tolerates mistreatment and abuse. After reuniting with Monster, she gradually becomes strong and resilient.
Tommy Dewey helps carry the film. He has crackling chemistry with Barrera and a great sense of comic timing. Edmund Donovan is really good at playing a narcissistic asshole.
Your Monster, which was helmed by first-time director Caroline Lindy, has an underlying theme of female oppression. It tackles this topic in a different (and much more subtle) style than The Substance or Immaculate, but its impact is just as great.
On a broader level, I think that Monster is a metaphor for the beast inside us all, who says what we really feel and refuses to take shit from anybody.
Rating
Melissa Barrera cements her scream queen credentials in Your Monster, a predictable but well-made passion project that brings the classic Beauty and the Beast tale into contemporary horror.
Rating from 1 (avoid at all costs) to 10 (masterpiece): 7.5
