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Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 1, 2004, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
The problem with even the most positive cinematic trend is that there will always be bandwagon-jumpers rushing in to capitalize on it. The welcome recent swing toward back-to-basics, ’70s-style horror has brought us House of 1000 Corpses, Cabin Fever and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead remakes, worthy efforts all even though each has its detractors. Yet any one of them has more integrity than opportunistic stuff like the obnoxious, insulting Detour (a.k.a. Hell’s Highway), and just as crassly pandering is Monster Man, whose opening scene clearly announces it as a horror film made by people who don’t know or care much for the genre. It begins with college student Adam (Eric Jungmann) driving down a rural road when a masked figure leaps from the back seat and attacks him with a knife. Adam pulls over and bolts from the car, only then for the assailant to reveal himself as—Adam’s college bud Harley (Justin Urich), playing a prank on him! Gosh, that never happens!
Monster Man was written and directed by Michael Davis, who previously made comedies and, in fact, hasn’t stopped here. The first hour is a witless, flagrant ripoff of Joy Ride with an overabundance of moron humor in between scenes in which Adam, Harley and a sexy hitchhiker (Aimee Brooks) they pick up are terrorized by a deformed human creature driving an enormous monster truck. Yet they’re never scared for more than one scene after any of the frightening events that befall them, and there aren’t much in the way of honest laughs to be had—mostly because party maniac Harley is irritating rather than ingratiating, coming off like Jack Black with all the rowdy charm surgically removed.
The hijinx finally subside for the final act, only for the film to become a Texas Chainsaw/Wrong Turn-style backwoods Guignol so overstated and contrived that it becomes ludicrous. Davis’ horror stylings are as obvious as can be, and while there’s quite a bit of splatter and a number of scenes involving real amputees, there isn’t a genuine scare or shiver to be found here. Any real resemblance between this movie and Chainsaw, The Hills Have Eyes, etc. is well and truly squelched by Monster Man’s puerile approach, best expressed by the fact that both the onscreen Harley and the offscreen actors and director (in the commentary track and EPK on Lions Gate’s DVD) refer to the central villain as “Fuckface.”
Those classic and obviously influential past titles never pass Davis’ lips on the commentary, which he shares with Jungmann and Urich, though he does cite something called The Penis Book as a reference source. Raunchy asides like this are peppered throughout the genial conversation, which does reveal a fair amount of interesting production secrets, like the easy solution to shooting driving scenes on a budget (the camera was in the front seat and the actors in the back with a prop steering wheel, and a fake back seat built behind them) and staging chases with a truck that could actually go no faster than 15 miles per hour.
Jungmann and Urich (who was cast only two days before shooting, yet nailed all his talkative character’s dialogue in minimal takes) clearly had a good time on the shoot, and Davis is full of praise for them and his technical crew. Their efforts paid off in a movie that’s slick-looking, at least, with the disc’s very sharp 1.85:1 transfer nicely capturing the palette of golden rural exteriors, deep black nights and a grotty green roadside bathroom. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio gives the action sequences the punch of a bigger-budget feature and is overall clear and well-balanced.
The disc’s coolest extra is an animated trailer created by Davis himself (a former storyboard artist) to help raise financing. Done in a style visually reminiscent of Bill Plympton, it conveys a promise of conjoined menace and humor that the film itself lacks (even as it includes one of Harley’s overripe lines of dialogue). Davis was, at the very least, highly enthusiastic about this project; the EPK includes behind-the-scenes footage of him working himself into a frenzy directing his cast, and a recollection by cinematographer Matthew Irving of Davis leaping onto his seat to excitedly describe the gory highlights during a preproduction meeting in a diner. The featurette is a standard puff piece that does manage to explore all sides of the production, including Todd Masters’ makeup FX and the truck itself—an admittedly impressive creation that deserves a better showcase.
