Little Monsters (2019)

Directed by: Abe Forsythe | 94 minutes | comedy, horror | Actors: Lupita Nyong’o, Josh Gad, Alexander England, Nadia Townsend, Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Diesel La Torraca, MJ Kokolis, Talayna Moana Nikora, Saskia Burmeister

The somewhat muddling Dave is the textbook example of a man who does not want to grow up. After the breakup of his band, the retired singer and metal guitarist goes through life as an unsuccessful street musician and spends his days mainly watching television, masturbating and smoking marijuana through his large water pipe. It is not surprising that his girlfriend is fed up with this life at some point and abandons Dave. Since he is almost broke, Dave can only go to his sister Tess and her son Felix.

One day, when he takes Felix to school, Dave meets the beautiful and sympathetic teacher Caroline. Inspired by the butterflies in his stomach, Dave joins Felix and his class as a school trip to a well-known petting zoo. But just happen to be right next to a secret US Army lab (the film is set in Australia) where all sorts of mysterious and sinister experiments are conducted. The trip turns into a hellish ordeal when the petting zoo is overrun by bloody zombies hungry for fresh animal and human flesh. Can Dave and Caroline get the kids to safety and stay out of the clutches of the advancing zombie horde?

The eye-catcher in ‘Little Monsters’ is without a doubt Lupita Nyong’o, an actress who already showed her considerable qualities in the epic drama ‘Twelve Years a Slave’ and the layered horror film ‘Us’. Here she takes a completely different approach and shows Nyong’o that slightly morbid humor with a big wink also fits her way. As a pretty, ukulele-playing figure in a striking sunflower-yellow dress, she attracts the attention of both her kindergarten class and many a father as kindergarten teacher Miss Caroline. But even in the heat of battle, she keeps her head remarkably cool and Caroline does everything she can to keep the brood entrusted to her care safe and calm. When the motley crew has to work their way through a horde of zombies, she delivers it as a mega version of the tag game, where the kids have to dodge the “opposite party.” And when Caroline gets smeared with the blood of some of her decapitated zombies, the stress-resistant teacher casually reveals that she’s been showered with a load of strawberry jam. In the midst of all the zombie violence, the plucky schoolteacher also has to deal with alleged childhood friend Teddy McGiggle (a glamorous Josh Gad), a gentleman who finds himself in a mental breakdown when the zombies storm the petting zoo.

The contrast between the polite and firm nanny Caroline and the initially rude Dave gives ‘Little Monsters’ a nice dynamism and a certain tenderness that is atypical for prints of this genre. The humor is mainly in the contrast between the panicking and foul-mouthed adult on the one hand and the playful innocence of unsuspecting children on the other, who think that the creepy scenes around them are part of an exciting school trip. In addition, it remains funny to see how bloodthirsty zombies gorge on human and animal body parts, while at the same time cheerful ukulele renditions of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off’ and Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ provide the musical accompaniment.

As a zombie comedy, “Little Monsters” doesn’t have much new to offer. We’ve seen it before and sometimes better (think especially of ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Zombieland’). The strength of this film lies more in the appealing characters and their development than in the originality of the story. Not an absolute genre topper, but an entertaining print that looks away nicely.