Little Monsters – a farmyard full of gore and giggles

BFI London Film Festival Review 2019. Little Monsters is now available to rent, buy or stream.

Delivering something new and inventive in the zombie horror sub-genre isn’t easy, considering the plethora of content already out there; therefore, writer/Director Abe Forsythe deserves credit for managing to bring us something that feels fresh and different, even if it’s not. With Little Monsters, we have a hilarious zombie comic book adventure that wouldn’t feel out of place on a streaming service like Arrow or Shudder. In fact, I would go as far as to suggest this may become a cult classic given time.

Dave (Alexander England) is a habitual slacker who consistently runs away from any responsibility, his life stuck in a neverending teenage loop. Maybe that’s why Dave’s relationship with his long-term girlfriend has just ended due to her suggesting they should conceive a child, with Dave now sleeping on his sister’s couch as a result. As Dave gets used to sofa surfing, he begins to build a relationship with his young nephew Felix, who, at five years old, is more mature than him! And it’s in his new duty chaperoning his nephew to school that Dave meets Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o), who encourages him to volunteer for a school trip to the local petting zoo. Little do they know that the animals at the petting zoo will soon be replaced with slow-moving, flesh-munching zombies.

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Little Monsters is, in many ways, a classic comic book horror/comedy, its cult credentials shining through the film’s humour and gore. Here the classic Night of Living Dead house is replaced by a souvenir shop of safety as the slow-moving zombies munch their way through the petting zoo in a delicious blood bath of fur and limbs. Performances are warm and engaging throughout, with Alexander England and Lupita Nyong’o perfectly balancing horror and comedy.

Little Monsters may sink slightly in the middle. Still, Forsythe’s movie is a creative, fun and genuinely engaging zombie apocalypse tale, a farmyard full of gore and giggles with a few exceptionally tender moments thrown in for good measure.

Director: Abe Forsythe

Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Alexander England, Josh Gad, Diesel La Torraca.

Australia 2019

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