THE MONSTER PROJECT (2017)

Studio:       Epic Pictures Group
Director:    Victor Mathieu
Writer:       Victor Mathieu, Shariya Lynn, Corbin Billings
Producer:  Victor Mathieu, Phillip Sebal, Mike Burkenbine, Corbin Billings
Stars:     Justin Bruening, Murielle Zuker, Jamal Evans, Yvonne Zima, Steven Flores, Shiori Ideta, James Storm, Susan Stangl, Toby Hemingway

Review Score:

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Summary:

Four amateur filmmakers become trapped in a mansion while interviewing three people who claim to be actual monsters.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Devon Adams and his friend Jamal stage a fake monster sighting that they record and post online as real. Looking to maximize hits, Devon suggests turning their scenes into a show where they go out in search of real monsters. Jamal calls it “The Monster Project.” Devon posts a Craigslist ad asking people who believe they are genuine monsters in Los Angeles to contact him.

Jamal’s roommate Bryan Jay, a recovering drug addict, records a sobriety video for his parents. His friend Murielle, whom Bryan is romantically interested in, briefly interrupts.

Devon and Jamal go to a Navajo reservation where they meet Steven, a reservation police officer who claims to be a Native American skinwalker. Because of a low camera battery, Jamal fails to record the meeting. However, Steven agrees to participate in Devon’s interview project.

Devon goes back to Jamal’s apartment and meets Bryan. Devon briefly has an awkward encounter with Murielle, who was once in a relationship with Devon that ended badly.

Tattoo artist Shayla contacts Devon and Jamal claiming to be a vampire. She offers to be interviewed in exchange for a vial of blood. Devon and Jamal convince Bryan to draw his blood. The three men then take the vial to a dead drop in a park. The vial mysteriously vanishes. Devoutly religious, Bryan warns Devon to be careful about what he is getting involved in.

Jamal is woken that night by loud banging on his door. On the doorstep he finds a DVD from an Asian woman named Shiori, who claims to be possessed by the demon Baphomet.

At a birthday party for Bryan, Devon apologizes to Bryan for previously referring to him as a junkie. Devon offers Bryan a job on “The Monster Project” as a production assistant.

Murielle has another angry confrontation with Devon. It ends with Devon offering Murielle a job directing “The Monster Project,” which is a gig in line with her career ambitions.

Once the party guests are gone, Bryan and Murielle share a private moment together. Murielle kisses Bryan, but abruptly leaves afterward. Out of frustration over Murielle rejecting him, Bryan throws a chair in a fit of anger. Bryan tries talking to Murielle about their kiss the next day, but she says it was a mistake and does not want to ruin their friendship.

Devon, Jamal, Murielle, and Bryan arrive at an old mansion that Devon rented on the night of a lunar eclipse to interview the three supposed monsters. Property caretaker Richard tells them that the house was the site of satanic activity in the 1960s. The group briefly has a strange encounter with Richard’s catatonic wife Martha, who is bound to a wheelchair.

Seemingly supernatural activity plagues the house as the night goes on, making the crew uncomfortable. Shiori, Shayla, and Steven arrive at the house one by one.

Steven is first to be interviewed. Steven confirms that to become a skinwalker, one must kill a family member in order to make a pact for power with The Devil.

Shayla is interviewed next. Having tasted his blood, Shayla insists that Bryan be the person who asks her the questions. During her interview, Shayla mentions that she tasted oxycontin in Bryan’s blood. Livid that Shayla revealed he is still using drugs, Bryan storms off the set.

Jamal angrily confronts Bryan over lying about his sobriety. Jamal confiscates Bryan’s pills and kicks him off the set. Bryan throws another tantrum.

During her interview, Shiori claims that “the bad man” has been with her since birth and promised to leave her if she did the interview. Shiori shows the crew wounds suffered from the demon as the video feed glitches. Shiori starts screaming. The power in the house suddenly goes out.

Steven transforms into the skinwalker and attacks. Shiori becomes possessed and also starts terrorizing Devon, Murielle, and Jamal. Steven attacks Jamal and pulls him away.

Hearing the screams, Bryan returns to the house and regroups with Devon and Murielle. They find Jamal badly injured.

Shayla attacks in vampire form. Murielle is bitten in her neck. Jamal rescues Bryan by staking Shayla, who is destroyed.

Steven attacks again, forcing the quartet to hide. They discover Shiori hiding too. Hoping to rescue her before the demon possesses her again, the group brings Shiori with them.

Steven chases the quintet. Devon discovers that all of the exits are sealed and everyone is trapped in the house.

Possessed once again, Shiori lunges at Bryan. Bryan enters a nightmarish vision in which he is forced to confront all of his junkie friends who died because he gave them tainted drugs.

Bryan returns to reality to pray over Shiori. Murielle goes into convulsions as the demon moves to her body. Murielle returns to normal when the demon is seemingly banished.

After Murielle recovers, she, Devon, and Bryan find Jamal morphing into a skinwalker. Steven suddenly attacks Jamal. Devon and Murielle flee upstairs. Bryan follows after them.

Murielle begins dying from her vampire bite. Devon tells her that she was part of his plan all along.

Bryan briefly confronts a robed cultist in an animal skull mask who says, “he is coming.” Bryan is forced to kill Murielle when she transforms into a vampire and attacks.

Still in skinwalker form, Steven resumes his pursuit of Bryan. Steven knocks Bryan outside from a second story window. After another chase, Bryan ends up in a room with satanic symbols and photographs indicating that everyone else was intentionally sacrificed.

Devon, the man in the skull mask, and several robed cultists enter the room. Bryan is captured. Supernaturally empowered, Devon partially explains that everyone had to die on that night in that house as part of an occult ritual.

The man in the mask proclaims, “anoint the head of your king.” The man removes the mask, revealing himself to be mansion caretaker Richard, and places the animal skull on Devon’s head. Thanking his wife Martha, Richard makes an invocation to Satan and slits Bryan’s throat.

The satanic summoning begins. The camera cuts to black as the house begins shaking violently.

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Review:

While we aren’t out of the woods, pun intended, entirely on “found footage” oversaturation, the subgenre at least appears to have temporarily turned away from regular releases featuring amateur documentarians spelunking in haunted hospitals.  The new challenge among indie horror moviemakers is to come up with a concept fitting for a first-person frame, without simply aping everything already done in “The Blair Witch Project” (review here), “Paranormal Activity” (review here), etc., etc., and then some.

Recent years have seen films including “Afflicted” (review here), “The Taking of Deborah Logan” (review here), and “Delivery: The Beast Within” (review here) tweak the formula just enough to stand out from the “found footage” flotsam choking every VOD streaming service in existence.  According to the movie’s marketing, Victor Mathieu’s “The Monster Project” proposes to join the ranks of these one-of-a-kind “found footage” films with an inventive take on the format.

For a few minutes here and there in the first act, it appears as though the movie might make its name by way of drawn out drama creating characters with a big bite of depth.  Once those characters become trapped in a haunted house for the climax, it starts seeming like the film isn’t as unique as it aims to be.  By the time it reaches the back half, “The Monster Project” fully degrades into a noisy corridor sprint of heroes shouting “ah!” and villains screaming “boo!” for an effort joining the jetsam lamented in paragraph two.

Devon and Jamal have scared up tens of thousands of hits by creating fake monster attack videos that they post online as real.  To increase their audience, Devon wonders, why not find some actual monsters and capture them on camera instead?

Devon has good fortune, because a vampire, a Native American skinwalker, and a woman possessed by a demon all happen to be cruising Craigslist classifieds looking for opportunities to exploit their supernatural abilities.  Devon quickly has a trio of terrors on tap for interviews.  Now he needs a complete crew.

First to reluctantly join the team is Jamal’s roommate Bryan.  Bryan creates a somewhat sticky situation in that he is a recovering drug abuser.  Not only that, but Bryan has romantic eyes for his good friend Murielle.  That’s trouble because Murielle is Devon’s ex-girlfriend, and their relationship ended badly.  Not so badly however, that Murielle’s career goals would conflict with their amour animosity.  So when Devon makes her an offer to be his project’s director, Murielle accepts.

All of these soap opera setups initially stage the story as being about a man wrestling with addiction in a weird love triangle while an innocent roommate is caught in the middle.  With everyone driven by dreams of becoming a Hollywood big shot to boot, “The Monster Project” starts off as something like Backstage West presents MTV’s “The Real World.”

Bryan’s struggle with sobriety, Murielle’s unresolved anger toward her ex, Devon’s unfettered ambition, and Jamal’s… whatever he has going on, don’t do much to power their own subplots.  Following scene after scene of confessions, confrontations, and additional exposition, one starts wishing everyone would just go to a haunted asylum after all, as at least something stimulating might finally happen.

Considering the effort “The Monster Project” mounts to put these conflicts in play, the routine reality show melodrama doesn’t pay off anyway.  Devon and Bryan don’t really get into a row over Murielle.  Murielle’s directing dream immediately eradicates further stabs at closure with Devon.  Jamal gets into it with Bryan over lying about drugs, though Bryan’s climb toward redemption loses out on acquiring an emotional hook.

This is because the film’s second half is simply the quarreling quartet running a Halloween haunt gauntlet as they flee from and fight with the creature trio.  It’s not a story.  It’s not even scary.  It’s a series of frightening faces lunging at the camera in monochromatic night vision.

The long home stretch of “The Monster Project” is everything audiences typically dislike about “found footage.”  Blurry shots as the handheld camera bounces frantically back and forth.  Inconsequential dialogue consisting of characters saying things such as, “c’mon!  It won’t open!  Move, move!  Sh*t!  F*ck!  Hurry!”  How about reasons to wonder, “why are they still filming and who found this footage?”

One logic leap regarding the latter involves the fact that the skinwalker wears a body camera because he is a Navajo reservation police officer.  Said camera conveniently stays on him even in creature form, with one guess as good as another as to how someone obtained his video after the fact.

Maybe fans of films like “The Houses October Built” (review here) or “Hell House LLC” (review here) will appreciate the Halloween maze feel of the film’s frenetic finale.  Anyone burned out on first-person frights however, best reconsider taking this particular trip.

Review Score:  35

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