Bullet Points: Monster Hunters (2020)
The Asylum doesn’t make many good films. It’s a real test for a person to review these movies knowing that budget constraints and ridiculous storylines are par for the Asylum course. I made the decision to watch Monster Hunters because I am either a glutton for punishment or because it was only about 85 minutes long. You be the judge.
Synopsis: When an alien prison ship crash lands and unleashes creature after creature in the California desert, the Prisoners make quick work of the dozen that tries to stop them. Now, the only hope of stopping the aliens rests with a secret Branch of the Government specializing in alien weaponry.
- Crash Landing: The film opens with a crazy guy walking around with his metal detector and rambling on about aliens. He’s crazy because we see it but he’s also right as an alien ship crash lands on his property. His biggest problem, however, isn’t how to sell the rights to the biggest media corporation but that some of the aliens are in terrible moods and he gets his ass eaten pretty quickly.
- Your local Alien Defense Unit: They only way you know about the Alien Defense Unit is because you’re being recruited by the ADU. That sounds far more prestigious than it is because the ADU is full of people who just so happened to witness an event that forced them to be kept quiet. No one actually wants to be there and many of them despise the position. Hell, the ADU facility that we see only has bout 10 people and the communications room is a freaking janitor’s closet.
- Prepare your gear: Movies like this are neve expected to wow me with their depictions of military life but this one does a phenomenal job at pissing me off right away. The soldiers are all wearing their rank upside down and speaking as if some E-4 Specialist is going to take command of an installation commanded by an E-8 Master Sergeant. Their uniforms and combat equipment is next level bad, as well, and I can’t imagine a movie out there that could do such a bad job of equipping a supposed Defense Force against alien invasion.
- Locate and destroy: The film doesn’t waste a lot of time with story or character development. The characters that we meet go on the hunt for the escaped aliens somewhat quickly even though they are woefully unprepared. The cardinal sin is made in that most of the soldiers die off so easily that there isn’t a “good fight” between any of the aliens and the ADU hunting them down. In fact, the pussy scientist Bob is the only guy who isn’t a total waste of space when it comes to killing the things. Maybe they should get more Bobs.
- Nuke it: When in doubt, nuke the piss out of California. That’s what I’ve always said and I guess the US Government agrees with me. They are pretty quick to pull the trigger on a nuclear strike even though they know that only a handful of aliens had made their way off of the crashed ship.
- Sizemore: Old Tommy Sizemore got his high and tight haircut and prepared for his role to the extent of learning his lines but it’s pretty clear that the “star” of the movie was only on set for a couple of days. He is the Colonel in charge of the Alien Defense Unit and plays pretty loose with the safety of Earth when his friend’s are in question. I can’t say that his contributions to the film did much good but at least he’s out there making a buck or two off of his name. Good for him.
The Verdict: So much for debris and nuclear fallout. Monster Hunters was never going to be a realistic depiction of anything and I guess it was never going to be about monsters. It’s clear right away that these are aliens and now the only conclusion is that they were going for the “confused viewer meant to click Monster Hunter view”. This film isn’t good. In fact, I can’t mention a single thing that I enjoyed about it other than the short runtime. The synopsis of the film is one that could have been cool but it just wasn’t in this case and that somehow makes it even worse. Skip it and stream something… anything. You’ll thank me.
