Rating: *1/2
Starring: Eric Jungmann, Justin Urich, Aimee Brooks
Adam (the Wuss) and Harley (the Jerk) are two college mates on a road trip to a wedding where a girl Adam likes happens to be the bride. After stopping by at a local diner for a quick beer or two, Harley dim-wittedly pisses off the redneck population in said stop, inevitably leading to them getting stalked across the road by someone riding a goddamn monster truck. Eventually dragging along a sexy hitchhiker into the mess, the buddies soon find out that whoever is riding the truck might be involved with a series of missing limbs and bizarre Satanic cult murders around that desert highway.Not really sure what got me into trying this film, but I'm thinking it's the monster truck. Not that I enjoy watching derbies featuring cars with giant donut-shaped wheels riding through dirt, but rather it's the idea that such vehicle actually exists. So, with moderate expectations, Monster Man (2003) has a good start taking cues from teen buddy films like Road Trip (2000) and Miss March (2009), the two leads being funny with their anticsand all, but the good guy/obnoxious jerk buddy act got tiring real quickly as the routine seems to take a toll to itself for how repetitive and uninspired it is.
Apart from failing as a buddy film, Monster Man (2003) also fails as a horror flick; given that we do have some gross-out scenes and a decent set of car chases ala Jeepers Creepers (2001) opening, any sense of dread and tension is lost due to its hammy nature and lack of any strong gore. Add the feel-good ending and comical shots of our villain, what we have here is a sad and sometimes annoying wannabe slasher.
Not a lost cause as the film still has its strengths, though it's going to be very dependent on the viewer's taste on whether they can accept the film's weird sense of humor or not. For the rest of us hardcore slasher fans, I think it's best not to involve ourselves with this one. See it once and then dump it if you like.Bodycount:
1 male has his head crushed with a clamp
1 male seen headless
1 male ran over and crushed with a monster truck
1 male seen with a crushed torso
1 male mentioned crashes through windshield, killed
1 female gets a throat cut
Total: 6
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