There Are Monsters—And Then There Are Moms
Let’s be honest: The Monster sounds like the kind of straight-to-streaming creature feature you’d scroll past on a rainy night—right between Sharktopus 3: Tentacles of Destiny and Attack of the Mutant Deer. But Bryan Bertino, the twisted genius behind The Strangers, decided to play emotional Russian roulette with his audience instead. What he delivers isn’t a mere monster movie—it’s a therapy session in the woods featuring fangs, flashbacks, and a mother-daughter dynamic that makes Mommie Dearest look like Gilmore Girls.
Released in 2016 by A24 (because of course it was—nobody does trauma horror like those people), The Monster is both a tight, blood-slicked survival story and a brutal metaphor for addiction, guilt, and love that refuses to die—even when everything else does.
Meet Kathy: The Patron Saint of Bad Decisions
Zoe Kazan plays Kathy, a mother so perpetually hungover that even her coffee looks tired. She’s a chain-smoking, vodka-marinated hurricane of regret who can’t quite figure out whether she’s raising a daughter or just traumatizing one in real-time. Kazan plays her with a jittery vulnerability that makes you both want to hug her and hide your car keys.
Kathy’s relationship with her daughter Lizzy (Ella Ballentine) is less “bonding” and more “cold war with seatbelts.” When the film opens, Kathy is driving Lizzy to her ex’s house for what might as well be a custody handoff between two failed countries. Then, in a stroke of cosmic irony, she hits a wolf—because apparently karma drives a semi-truck.
Roadside Assistance, Courtesy of Hell
After the wolf incident, things go south faster than Kathy’s liver enzymes. The tow truck guy shows up, crawls under the car, and immediately loses an arm—a metaphor, perhaps, for what happens when you agree to cameo in a low-budget horror movie. Then, a creature straight from the depths of someone’s therapy session begins its dinner service, and everyone’s on the menu.
This thing, simply called “The Monster,” looks like H.R. Giger’s leftover sketch from a hangover day. It’s covered in tar, teeth, and possibly regret. It’s terrifying in the way good old-fashioned practical effects are terrifying: wet, tactile, and aggressively real. CGI may be cheaper, but rubber suits never forget how to haunt you.
Ella Ballentine: Child Actor, Emotional Wrecking Ball
Ella Ballentine, as Lizzy, gives a performance so good it’s almost cruel. She captures the confused heartbreak of a kid forced to grow up while her parent is still figuring out how to do the same. Lizzy is smart, angry, and heartbreakingly mature—like the world’s youngest life coach trapped in a horror movie.
There’s one moment when she says to her mom, “You’re a terrible mother.” And it’s not delivered with melodrama—it’s delivered like a weather report. Just a statement of fact. Later, when she risks everything to save Kathy, you realize that love and resentment can coexist beautifully, especially when there’s a murderous cryptid outside.
The Monster: Therapy With Claws
The creature itself is almost secondary to the emotional carnage. Sure, it kills people, but so does alcoholism—just slower and with fewer special effects. The real brilliance of Bertino’s script is how he uses the monster as a physical embodiment of addiction. It’s always lurking, always hungry, and it never lets you off easy.
When Kathy realizes the only way to save her daughter is to sacrifice herself, it’s both heartbreaking and poetic. She’s finally sober enough—emotionally, not physically—to choose love over fear. The fact that her redemption arc involves being eaten alive is just the kind of symbolism A24 probably high-fived themselves over during editing.
The Lighting Budget Deserves an Award
Visually, The Monster is a masterclass in minimalism. The entire film seems to take place in a rain-soaked purgatory where the only available colors are black, gray, and “oh God, is that blood?” The cinematography traps you in that lonely stretch of forest road so effectively that you can almost feel the mildew.
The use of light, though, is where the film shines—literally. Flashlights, flares, and fire become both weapons and symbols of hope. Every time Lizzy or Kathy ignites something, you feel a flicker of defiance. The monster fears light, just as addiction fears accountability. And nothing says empowerment quite like setting your trauma on fire with a can of hairspray.
Bryan Bertino: Still Ruining Sleep Since 2008
Bertino proves once again that horror doesn’t need an ensemble of shrieking teens or a haunted asylum to scare the living daylights out of you. He finds terror in the ordinary—the dead silence of the woods, the hiss of rain on metal, the ragged breathing of two people trying to survive their own family history.
There’s an almost perverse elegance to how he balances emotional depth and monster mayhem. He’s like the Dr. Phil of horror—offering tough love, life lessons, and the occasional decapitation.
A24’s Fingerprints: Trauma Chic
As with all A24 horror, you know what you’re in for: moody cinematography, long silences that make you question your life choices, and just enough despair to ruin a perfectly good evening. But here, it works.
The studio’s knack for turning misery into art finds a perfect vessel in The Monster. The story could’ve been pulp, but instead it’s poetry written in blood and flashlight beams. The mother-daughter dynamic gives it weight, and the monster gives it claws.
It’s not “fun” horror. It’s the kind that makes you reflect on your childhood and text your therapist afterward. But between the tears and the jump scares, you’ll find something rare—hope.
The Ending: Girl, Interrupted (and Covered in Monster Goo)
The final act is pure catharsis. Kathy, finally free of denial, sacrifices herself so her daughter can live. Lizzy, now steeled by trauma and vengeance, torches the monster like she’s auditioning for Mad Max: Woodland Edition.
When it’s over, she steps into the dawn, bloodied but unbroken. It’s the horror version of a graduation ceremony—only with fewer awkward speeches and more smoldering corpses. The sun rises, the nightmare ends, and for once in an A24 film, someone actually survives and grows emotionally.
Final Thoughts: Heartfelt Horror With Bite
The Monster is the rare horror film that manages to scare you, move you, and make you reconsider every argument you’ve ever had with your mother. It’s not just about surviving the night—it’s about confronting the monsters we create ourselves.
Zoe Kazan delivers one of her most powerful performances, Ella Ballentine proves herself a prodigy, and the titular beast earns a spot in the “nightmare fuel” hall of fame.
It’s messy, emotional, and relentlessly bleak—but in that strangely comforting A24 way that makes you whisper, “Yes, please, ruin me emotionally again.”
Verdict:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ out of 5.
A gripping, gut-punching monster movie that proves the scariest thing in the dark might just be love.
Would you like me to follow this up with a companion piece called “The Monster and Me: Why Therapy Should Come With a Flashlight”? It could extend the dark humor tone as an essay-style epilogue.
