LITTLE MONSTERS: Horror Comedy At Its Most Insufferable

In Jon Ronson’s book The Men Who Stare at Goats, he discovered that the CIA played children’s TV theme tunes like Barney the Dinosaur at deafening volumes on repeat to torture prisoners of war. You can only imagine the CIA’s disappointment that Josh Gad’s performance in Little Monsters wasn’t available during the immediate years of the War on Terror, a performance so grating it’d make any sane person become a whistleblower in seconds, happy to give away state secrets just to make the torturous experience end.

Please stop, for the love of Gad

Abe Forsythe’s horror comedy screeches to a halt after a promising opening act to introduce Gad, playing a children’s entertainer by the name of Teddy McGiggle, who enters the action at approximately the same time that the undead are let loose. The simple joys of a jet black zombie comedy are hard to embrace when placed next to something so inherently cringeworthy – Gad’s comedic presence has always been an acquired taste, but he’s never managed to derail a film from the sidelines quite like he does here. He’s never the central focus, but it’s hard to think of a character or performance that could be more ill fitting with a previously established dark, nihilistic tone. 

But before the horror (Gad’s performance, not the zombies) begins, the film shows signs of promise. Alexander England stars as Dave, a directionless man who moves back in with his long suffering sister after a breakup, but takes on the task of being a good uncle to his nephew Felix (Diesel La Torraca). After roping Felix in to an ill thought through plan to win back his former girlfriend, he decides to change direction and be responsible – until he meets Felix’s teacher Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o) and prioritises attempting to sleep with her over any other adult responsibility.

He volunteers to be one of the parental volunteers on a school trip to get close to Miss Caroline, but unfortunately, the planned trip to a safari park goes awry when zombies emerge from the American military base next door. Even worse, the school children have to contend with a greater evil; the insufferable children’s TV personality played by Josh Gad, who is somehow even more annoying when swearing at children after dropping his small screen persona.

It’s not a unique observation to say that the reason horror comedies so rarely work is because of how difficult it is to perfect the balance of laughter and scares. To Forsythe’s credit, he never tries to make the presence of zombies anything other than a surreal crisis for his protagonist, to trigger some personal growth that will help him become a responsible adult. The problem lies with the fact that Little Monsters could have worked just as well stripped of the threat from the undead. 

A Zombie Movie that doesn’t need the Zombies

It may have been a far less unique premise (like a foul mouthed, Australian take on About a Boy), but following Dave’s attempts to be a responsible uncle, simply so he can sleep with his nephew’s teacher, is a straightforward comic premise, and the film excels when this is the only driving narrative force. In comedy terms, Forsythe has put a “hat on a hat”, undermining the original joke by putting an additional unnecessary premise on top of it, when the gag was funny enough to begin with. By the time he introduces the children’s entertainer filming at the park the same day the school visits, the film becomes overwhelmed by the sheer number of hats placed on top of each other.

To circle back to Gad, one of the main reasons why his performance becomes so grating is because of how unnecessary the character feels within the story itself. A cynical part of me believes that Forsythe wouldn’t be given the funding needed to make a big zombie comedy unless he added a second Hollywood name to the cast list – one who becomes central to the drama without ever having any effect on the direction of the story. Gad himself is an awkward fit for the role; he can easily sell being an annoying children’s TV presenter, but is inexplicably unconvincing as a children’s TV presenter dropping the facade and launching into foul mouthed tirades. This is the all more noticeable considering how he got his big break starring in a Broadway black comedy. 

I’ve also managed to get this far into the review without referencing Lupita Nyong’o’s role as anything more than a passing detail. And that’s because, unfortunately, that is all the screenplay makes her out to be – a manic pixie dream girl whose existence drives the growth of the central character, with enough quirks (she sings Taylor Swift ukulele covers!) to give the illusion of personality beyond this. Nyong’o does her best with the material, but it will naturally get forgotten when placed next to her previous leading role in a horror film this year.

Little Monsters: Conclusion

Little Monsters is a horror comedy with no scares, and a comic potential that runs out of steam by the time the premise kicks in. What should be a midnight movie style crowdpleaser becomes one of the most insufferable big screen comedies in quite some time. 

Watch Little Monsters