Monsters: Dark Continent is a 2014 American science fiction horror film directed by Tom Green from a screenplay by Jay Basu. It stars Johnny Harris, Sam Keeley, Joe Dempsie, Sam Keeley, Kyle Soller, Nicholas Pinnock, Uriel Emil, Parker Sawyers.
Seven years on from the events of Monsters, and the ‘Infected Zones’ have spread worldwide. Humans have been knocked off the top of the food chain, with disparate communities struggling for survival. American soldiers are being sent abroad to protect US interests from the Monsters, but the war is far from being won.
Noah, a haunted soldier with several tours under his belt, is sent on a mission: an American soldier has gone rogue deep in the Infected Zone, and Noah must reach him and take him out. But when Noah’s unit and transport are destroyed, he finds himself with only a young and inexperienced cadet for company – the brother of the man Noah has been sent to kill.
The two soldiers must go on a life-altering journey through the dark heart of monster territory, accompanied by a young local woman to guide them. By the time the three of them reach their goal, they will have been forced to confront the fear that the true monsters on the planet may not be alien after all…
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Reviews:
A tale of US army grunts sent to a Middle Eastern country to fight both Monsters and insurgents, in a story that you can only imagine was a cliché ridden Gulf War film that someone thought could be retooled as a sequel to a science fiction film. And so the Monsters play almost no part in the narrative, instead simply being a background presence that is presumably supposed to be symbolic and allegorical.
This is a genuinely unpleasant film, with every Gulf / Nam cliché included – like many such films, it’s a right wing story dressed in left wing clothing, ostensibly critical of the war but supporting those who fight it, and entirely in love with macho culture, as shown in the opening scenes of male bonding and wild parties with prostitutes.
Monsters: Dark Continent is a horrible film that is all over the place in terms of pacing and style, has characters who would need to be developed just to become one-dimensional, and runs out of what few ideas it has early on, but insists on padding out the empty story for an interminable two hours.
David Flint, MOVIES & MANIA
Other reviews:
“Monsters: Dark Continent feels like it involved a huge amount of work, building on a strong foundation, to create something entirely ho-hum which squanders the potential of its central conceit to tell a story that, while perhaps relevant to our times, has as a result been told many times and to which this adds little that is new.” The Bad Movie Marathon
“It’s not free of longeurs (dazed characters wander around a bit too much) and clichés but it also has a rough beauty unusual in science fiction: the bleached-out desert landscapes, augmented by CGI monster carcasses, clouds of black smoke and shimmering are gorgeous, presenting Earth as an alien, hostile environment.” Kim Newman, Empire Magazine
Release:
The Vertigo Films/Ingenious Film Partners/Between the Eyes production was released on November 28, 2014.
