Reviews
[REVIEW] ‘Monolith’ (2022) Builds Up Mystery and Brings Down the House
I rarely run into using cliches while writing my reviews, but it’s very frustrating when I do. In particular, saying, “I was on the edge of my seat the whole time” is trite. But when a movie like Matt Vesely’s Monolith comes along and has me quite literally on the edge of my seat within the first few minutes, I struggle to find another way to put it. And Monolith doesn’t relent on towing that line of discomfort until the credits roll.
NOT JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL
She was at the top of her game working as an investigative journalist. But when her story is found to be libelous, and her defamation case spreads like wildfire, the unnamed Interviewer loses everything. Taking work as the host of the mystery podcast Beyond Believable and hiding in her parent’s countryside home, The Interviewer begins to uncover a bizarre series of events surrounding a collection of black bricks and their tortured owners. As her sensationalized coverage propels the story of the brick’s disturbing phenomena onto an international scale, she finds her place in the story closer to home than she thought.
It has been a long week of film-watching for me at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2023, so I had prayed that Monolith would be the big finish I had been waiting for. And a big finish it is. Monolith is best compared to Alex Garland’s best work in films like Ex Machina and Annihilation. It’s eldritch sci-fi horror done right, and I know it’s done right because it manages to make a black brick one of the freakiest horror movie villains of the year.
VESELY AND CO. BALANCE A HARD-TO-EXECUTE CONCEPT
A one-character, one-location film is very easy to mess up and relies chiefly on three things: strong pacing, strong camerawork, and a very strong performance from the lead. It has to be hard to get distracted in a film like this. You need an added degree of investment when the range of a character’s motion is limited, and Monolith hits all three immediately. You never find yourself waiting for the story to start back up, you have enough room to breathe and think about the moving parts of Monolith’s mystery, but not enough to ever be comfortable.
Similarly, the camerawork manages to make the most out of capturing mostly cold, quiet interiors. The framing makes you dread every turn around a corner and push down a hallway. This is best exhibited in the deeply disquieting vision sequences, which show us a victim’s point of view experiences with the bricks, and the things the artifacts force them to see in themselves and the world around them. Underlying the scenes is an uncomfortable, syncopated soundtrack that adds another dimension of something being off, steeped in a waking dream you have no control over.
GREAT WRITING, DRIVEN BY INCREDIBLE ACTING
The sequences are driven by writer Lucy Campbell’s great dialogue, which feels natural and unnatural all at once. You can tell everybody speaking to the Interviewer is slowly being dragged back down into the pit of their memory, meeting an old friend with a new sinister undertone, and that eventually leeches into the Interviewer herself as she falls headfirst into a desire for the truth.
And with only the lead performance left to stick the landing, I have to give it up to Lily Sullivan who is top tier in this as the Interviewer.
Sullivan’s acting is able to generate this powder keg of negativity that is waiting to blow up. The Interviewer is cynical, stubborn, and conniving, but above all else, she’s unrelenting. She is a perfect embodiment of predatory journalism and simultaneously a victim of her own ambition. You feel her need to escape her mistakes palpably thanks to Sullivan’s ability to play that desperation, and if you don’t sympathize with that, you will sympathize with her need for answers as you try to figure it out yourself. The hunt for the truth is at the epicenter of this role for her, and she makes you feel that the entire time.
Her acting in the role most people will recognize her for, Beth in Evil Dead Rise, was driven by great onscreen chemistry between her and the rest of the film’s cast. However, she excels because she isn’t connected to anybody physically. You watch her slowly sink deeper and deeper in fear and paranoia, and when she clashes with her callers, there are these bursts of anger that catch you off guard in a major way.
THE TRUTH WILL NOT SET YOU FREE
In the end, Monolith’s message is clear in a story all about the details being muddied. Lingering in the background is a subtle real-life fear: information is spreading too fast, and the stability of truth is not what it once was. In a world where misinformation is sold as reality, does every story need to be told? Should every truth, personal and private, be able to be published at will? And when you share your every thought to be consumed at the tap of a screen, do any of them really belong to you anymore?
It makes a near-perfect work depicting the horrors that can emerge when memetics take over, and the human mind becomes captured by a shared idea. Ironically, that’s what makes me hope everybody gets to share in their dread on a wider release and connect over the terror of Monolith.
Monolith is streaming now on Tubi!
Most people find that stretching their dollar still barely gets them by in today’s economy. I am very particular about what I spend my spare money on regarding extracurriculars. And no one likes to feel like their money is wasted. Madame Morbid Trolley Tours wasn’t an experience I had been familiar with. Maybe that’s because I’m chronically offline for most of my life. So this leads to the perfect question: in today’s turbulent economy, is Madame Morbid Trolley Tours worth the price? The short answer is unquestionably, yes. But it’s more than just a simple yes.
My wife and I arrived at the designated meeting point 15 minutes before the scheduled departure time. A handful of minutes later, a gorgeous, e-candle-lit trolley pulled up to the side of the road. We were greeted by impeccably on-brand Allison Chase, our tour guide, and trolley driver ‘Mad’ Matt Zaller. The wonderfully cheery duo invited us on the trolley, and the tour was set to begin.
400 Years of Death, Destruction, and Infrastructure
After a welcoming video intro from someone who knows a thing or two about busting ghosts, we set off on the inaugural Madame Morbid Trolley Tour in its ninth year of operation. From the Brooklyn Naval Yard all the way to Dumbo, and more, this tour magnificently chronicles 400 years of history, the good and the bad, expertly. No matter how much you think you may know about Brooklyn history, I can bet there will be something new learned within the first 15 minutes of the tour. From the first-ever plane crash to one of the worst theater fires in history, this tour covers tragedies that the greatest horror writers couldn’t conceive.
The Deadly [Charming] Docent
Allison Chase led the fascinating tour in character from the moment we stepped on the trolley until our departure. But Allison’s character was not forced or fake; you could feel Allison’s passion for not just morbid history, but the accuracy of it. Some of the stories we heard were steeped in historical context, and it was not boring for a single second. The Madame Morbid Trolley Tour is not your standard full-talking tour. It’s a mixed-media adventure of some of Brooklyn’s darkest moments.
During “downtime” (the times between locations), we were edutained by mini documentaries (that were quite funny). Some of the “downtime” was filled with traffic trivia (I won a needle pen!). And other times were show-and-tell-like, with objects passed around for us to examine. But there was never a moment of silence that wasn’t purposeful. All in all, Allison’s knowledge and passion shone like the luminosity of a full moon.
Is Madame Morbid Trolley Tours Worth It?
The Madame Morbid Trolley Tour was not just a fun night out for my wife and me, but it was a delightfully dark night of edutainment. It should also be noted that ‘Mad’ Matt’s driving skills were fantastic. There was a time when I had become enamored with how Matt handled the narrow streets of Brooklyn before realizing that I needed to refocus my attention on Allison. The Madame Morbid Trolley Tour is an exceptionally fun evening of horror and history that will make you think twice next time you walk down the streets of Brooklyn. It is worth the money, and then some. There’s no better activity for a cold, dark October night than the Madame Morbid Trolley Tour.
For more information on Madame Morbid Trolley Tours, and to get your tickets, click here!
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should have watched the Stephen King adaptation Cujo a million years ago. First of all, I was a voracious King reader in middle school. The other thing I was obsessed with during those years was Friends. You know, the show that hinges a major episode’s subplot on Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) watching Cujo for the first time. Whatever the reason was, I never got around to it, but I’m rectifying that oversight now.
What is Cujo About?
Cujo tells a relatively simple story. Donna Trenton’s (Dee Wallace) a housewife who’s cheating on her husband Vic (Daniel Hugh-Kelly) with local handyman Steve (Christopher Stone). There’s no accounting for taste, because Vic is 10 times hotter and Steve doesn’t own a bed frame. Look, Donna. I know Vic has that awful David Hasselhoff hair, but I promise the 1980s will end sooner or later. It’ll be OK.
Donna’s attempted termination of this affair ultimately leads to its discovery. Amid this drama, her car breaks down at a mechanic’s isolated farmhouse, trapping her and her son, Tad (Danny Pintauro). You see, the mechanic’s dog, Cujo, freshly christened with rabies, is patrolling the area and attacking everything in sight.
Dee Wallace Is Cujo’s Not-So-Secret Weapon
It would be impossible to start a worthwhile review of Cujo without praising Dee Wallace. The woman is a genre icon, naturally. Think about this: She had only appeared in seven theatrical movies before starring in Cujo. Four of those movies are The Stepford Wives, The Hills Have Eyes, E.T., and The Howling. But this woman didn’t become an icon simply by accidentally stumbling into some iconic titles. She is simply terrific as Donna, using her darting eyes and taut expression to deliver oodles of subtext. You instantly get the sense of how trapped she feels by marriage and motherhood without her uttering a single word.
A good performance is vital, here. Because there’s a hell of a lot of drama to get through before she’s trapped in that damn car. But Wallace instantly shoves you into Donna’s perspective, whether you like it or not. This makes it all the more potent when she is menaced by Cujo. Her desperate attempts for survival, also impeccably performed, have true weight because she seems like a real person. She is also given an incredible scene partner in Danny Pintauro. The future Who’s the Boss? star, who was only six when shooting Cujo, has a perfect everychild quality. His innocence heightens the peril. But so does that fact that he is just as irritating as every six-year-old you’ve ever met.
This movie truly captures how annoying it must be to be stuck in a life-and-death situation with a child. This is a compliment, I swear! Donna is worn down by every aspect of the situation, including her own son’s inability to cope with it. And this ratchets up the tension even further, to an almost unbearable degree.
Cujo Is a Mixed Bag, But Worthwhile Overall
The movie doesn’t work if Cujo himself doesn’t work, and at first I was real worried that he wouldn’t. In the first half, the St. Bernards that play Cujo onscreen are often shown to be wagging their tails in delight. Which kind of undercuts the reality of the situation, I’d say. But the editing and the special effects step in to fix what animal training couldn’t. The attack scenes in the second half are constructed with quick cuts that never let you get too much purchase. It’s a good approach for keeping viewers off-kilter.
Also, Cujo becomes less and less recognizable as a cuddly canine the further the movie gets. It’s a simple trick, really. He ends up getting coated with more and more slime. Saliva, pus, blood, and what have you. This is good for making him feel like a true movie monster. Plus, it’s a good mirror for the sliminess inside the car as it gets covered in sweat, blood, and grime.
The second half of the movie ultimately works like gangbusters. It’s a shame that Cujo is too cowardly to get Donna and Tad in the car before the halfway point. This decision is somewhat faithful to the book’s structure as I remember it. However, it diminishes the weight of the long days that they spend in the car. We really need to feel that crushing stretch of time, and we don’t. When Tad is suffering from dehydration, it’s not a gut punch. Honestly, I just found myself asking, “Already?” It’s good that they gave the movie a happier ending, because the classic grimdark Stephen King finale wouldn’t have landed.
Is Cujo Worth Watching in 2026?
At the end of the day, Cujo is a solid movie and I’m glad I finally watched it. However, it’s not such a stone-cold classic that I’m not at least a little intrigued by that upcoming Netflix remake…
