I've never been big on monster movies, I think mostly because all the good ones came before my time. However, as cinema begins to hearken back to the ideas of yesteryear, things end up getting reused with a more contemporary paint job (circa Poseidon (1970), The Italian Job (1969), Gone in 60 seconds (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) etc.).
Now sometimes this works because the original concept was good, but the technology just didn't exist at the time to give truest form to the idea being expressed. Obviously there are twice as many examples of movie remakes that were tremendous flops, demonstrating only the lack of creativity and originality present within much of Hollywood.
However, once in a while they manage to get things right. As I said in the beginning, I'm not big on monster movies, but I feel that fan or not, this movie was a very well executed example of the genre. The setting is atmospheric, the characters, while a little one dimensional, are believable, the pacing is good, and the suspense is well maintained.
I guess a lot of it boils down to what makes a monster movie? My basic premise would be: 1. A MONSTER 2. LOTS OF SCARED PEOPLE 3. GORE or at least a lot of people dying and 4. DEAD MONSTER AT END OF MOVIE WITH CLICHE SUGGESTION OF MORE MONSTER TO COME.
So the long and the short of it is, if you like monster movies, go see this. If not, rent it, because it's still pretty good.
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