Monster Killers – review

Director: Ben Steiner & Calvin Main (segments)

Release date: 2020

Contain spoilers

Monster Killers is yet another in the bow wave of anthology films made up from pre-existing shorts. This one uses some of the better end of shorts, with (in the main) good production values. However not all of them are uniquely in this anthology and I have definitely seen some of them before.

There are two particular films that bring this to our attention. The Sneak, directed by Calvin Main, has a creature that might be one of several horror entities but vampire fits as well as any. We will get to that later. However, to start with we’ll look at Ben Steiner’s The Flea.

going for the kill

The Flea starts with a woman (Mercedes Grower) on a park bench, her baby in a pram. She moves along the bench to keep her cigarette smoke from the baby, facing away and not noticing the man (Simon Meacock) who wears a makeshift mask and comes up to the pram. He places a wooden stake over the baby and hammers it home before running into the trees.

Mark Fleischmann as Mark

Indoors, Mark (Mark Fleischmann, Being Human) is reading about the murder in the newspaper, which suggests it is the return of a serial killer who targeted the old and the very young. As he reads his mother (Anna Fiertag) rambles about *him* not liking it. He says he is going out.

working together

Outside we see a homeless man observing him and then taking pills (the homeless man is the killer). When Mark gets home there is a note on the doormat. After reading it he panics and runs upstairs to a bedroom door. It is locked… He unlocks it and throws a plastic bag in. He goes to some parkland and meets Simon – the killer. Simon is convinced that there are things he must destroy, the same thing that ripped the animal he holds apart with its teeth. It transpires that they once worked together, killing together, but Mark stopped and suggests that they were insane (and Simon still is).

the father

The thing is. He knows exactly where a real one is. His father (Keith Francis) locked in the bedroom, but he can’t get out so can't be the vampire that Simon believes is active. Simon suggests otherwise and will pay the house a visit… There is no actual naming of vampires but the father starts banging on the door upstairs when Simon cuts himself downstairs as *they can smell blood*. It is clear, with the wooden stake, that we are dealing with vampires. How many of those they killed were also vampires (rather than unfortunate babies and old people) is unclear.

the sneak

The other short was The Sneak and in that we meet Bobby (Reggie Couz) on the phone and talking about the date he has just been on with Becky (Shelley Regner). He gets home and the door is ajar – unfortunately his roommate has a habit of leaving the door open. However things seem off when he goes in and something (also Shelley Regner) might be waiting for him. Done in the found footage style this was short and sweet and the creature (as mentioned above) might be one of several entities – but the teeth look sharp and vampire is as fair a call as any.

Becky and Bobby

So the Sneak is not bad, cultivating a tension and is so quick it doesn’t outstay its welcome. However it is the Flea which made it for me. A really off-kilter world, with a clever premise and telegraphing a lot in its short running time. As always, for an anthology I score the vampire segment and it is the Flea that raises this to 6 out of 10. Just be aware that there may be shorts in this you have seen elsewhere.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US