RG
Roberto Giacomelli
•Two friends are heading to the wedding of an ex-classmate, both of whom had a crush on her in high school, and one of them wants to take advantage of the opportunity to declare his feelings to the girl. During the journey, however, the two boys are chased and repeatedly rammed by a monster truck, one of those enormous vehicles with exaggeratedly large wheels. Soon, the two friends will realize that the monster driving the monster truck seems to have taken them as a target.
Funny horror movie mixed with slapstick comedy and splatter scenes; simply this premise can be found at the base of the intentions that led to the making of "Monster man", a film directed in 2003 by Michael Davis and distributed in Italy only for the home video market.
At the beginning of the viewing, the viewer who has come across this film expecting a hard and raw horror might be partially disoriented, finding themselves in front of embarrassing pseudo-comic skits featuring two idiot boys and quite irritating (one of them is the photocopy of Jack Black!), but with the passing of the minutes, between a disastrous scatological gag and the umpteenth double entendre with sexual connotations, one manages to enter the film's perspective and, despite some excesses of vulgarity, one definitely has fun. Then, from the moment the suggestive rusty and growling Monster truck comes into the scene, one also remembers that one is dealing with a horror movie; sure, a movie that pays too many tributes, in addition to "American pie", also to "Jeepers Creepers" and "Radio killer", not only for the close encounter on the road with a threatening motor vehicle, but also for the presence of an invulnerable villain with intentions far from friendly. In this case, the boogeyman of the turn is called goliardically Brother Bob, and has a really disturbing and gruesome appearance, worthy of a saga all to himself.
Therefore "Monster man" walks on two parallel paths that alternate the coarse-grained comedy with the Spielbergian memory on-the-road survival horror, ending up in a situation reminiscent of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" rich in genuine splatter scenes, filled with that underlying demeness that makes everything as camp as trash.
On the technical side, we are faced with a work that comfortably positions itself above the average of the home video products that are distributed in our country: fast direction, photography functional to the context, high-level makeup effects and teen movie actors who nevertheless manage to handle the film's comic timing perfectly.
In the end, facing "Monster man" one can be a bit disappointed if one considers the untapped potential that the film in question could have had if developed as a true and serious horror: a very well-characterized boogeyman with a frightening look; disturbing locations and a series of splatter findings of sure visual and emotional impact. The choice was made to opt for the farcical demeness and therefore to renounce any possibility of entering the history of horror cinema, but to aim for simple entertainment, resulting only in a good product suitable for a guaranteed night of laughs with friends. Did Davis make the right choice?
