Makes for an effective experience in which emotional trauma is manifested into a living, breathing terror.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 12, 2023

Part creature feature, part family drama, The Monster is a moderate horror film that favors a slower pace.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 2, 2021

At least the decision to use practical man-in-a-suit effects proves to be far better than CG alternatives.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 5, 2020

The Monster delivers tension and scares with an alarming regularity, while giving us enough backstory into the lives of these two characters to allow us to care if they live or die. It seems like a small thing, but it makes all the difference in horror.

| Apr 28, 2020

The powerful drama works splendidly in making you feel for both leads.

| Jan 9, 2020

A stark reminder that the best horror doesn't just scare us, it makes us feel something more.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 20, 2019

What makes The Monster such a masterful film is that it throws people who don't want to be around each other into a terrifying situation where they have to rely on each other to survive.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 2, 2018

It's a small movie with a big message and even if the big bad itself is not scary, it's the unseen creature that is eating away the love between a mother and a daughter that offers the strongest frights.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 18, 2017

The Monster lacks bite in the actual horror department, but like many other good horror films before it (Rosemary's Baby, The Shining), it plays with the anxiety of this very primal fear-the betrayal of the mother.

| Feb 22, 2017

A creature feature is only as good as its monster and Bertino's film delivers on that.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 15, 2017

An exceptional lead performance from Zoe Kazan makes the film stand out from the crowd.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 8, 2017

Strong acting, ambitious themes and a limp final act make for one frustrating horror film experience.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 4, 2017

It fails to generate anything resembling scares or suspense here, and the fault rests almost entirely with the script.

| Dec 13, 2016

We're coming up to the end of a year full of great horror movies. "The Monster" may have more modest goals than some of the others, but it deserves a place on that list.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 12, 2016

The Monster feels like a film reaching desperately for profundity and missing by a country mile. The Witch this is not. It's just another arthouse horror film broken down on the side of the road.

| Original Score: 4.8/10 | Nov 30, 2016

It doesn't take a lot of money to make a great horror movie. All it takes is the kind of understanding that The Monster possesses in spades.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 28, 2016

Bertino's film is a great setup but one which doesn't move forward from that setup in interesting ways.

| Original Score: 6.8/10 | Nov 23, 2016

There's no doubt that with The Monster, Bertino has confidently reestablished himself as a master of intimate horror.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2016

The Monster really is a well-calibrated, nicely-balanced film that juggles scares and drama in equal measure.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 16, 2016

The Monster represents a nerve-rattling comeback for the genre that should make long drives in the woods a lot more stressful for viewers.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 14, 2016