Why Did I Wait So Long To Watch Love and Monsters?

If you appreciate post-apocalyptic comedies, then Love and Monsters is a must watch.

I admit, this was one of those titles that I scrolled right on past every single time I saw it. I don’t know why, I love dystopian and post-apocalyptic movies, so this should have been right up my alley to begin with. I mean, the cover image is fantastic and I absolutely adore Dylan O’Brian.

The concept of a monster apocalypse is not quite as popular as zombies or a world where a virus kills off a huge percentage of the population. Who knows why, I mean, it isn’t any less realistic than zombies are. In any case, I have no idea why I passed this one up so many times.

Dylan O’Brian, who I think is an amazing actor from his roles in Teen Wolf and The Maze Runner, stars as the main character, Joel Dawson. Joel has been living in an underground bunker with his apocalypse family for seven long years since the monster apocalypse began.

During these long years underground, he hasn’t gone into the world above. His bunker family loves him and therefore, wants him to be safe, keeping him tucked away where he helps with the cooking and other chores. Not to mention the fact that he freezes in fear when faced with a monster, which his bunk mates consider a liability. His fear could get him, or someone else, killed.

One of the things he is good at is working with the radio, which leads him to re connect with the love of his life, whom he hasn’t seen since the day the apocalypse started. Which brings us to the love part of Love and Monsters.

Without much thought to it, Joel makes the decision to travel the eighty five miles to go see Aimee (Jessica Henwick), the girl he has spent seven years thinking about and writing letters that he thought would never get to her. His bunker family goes crazy when he tells them he is going, they fear for his safety in an overgrown world riddled with mutated monsters.

On the way, Joel meets my favorite character, a Dog named Boy. Boy lost his person and has been living in the Bus that they shared. This amazing dog saved his life and they bonded right from the start. Boy decides he wants to go on the journey with Joel, and that is that, they become best friends.

He also meets a couple of survivors who are traveling to the mountains, where they think there won’t be as many monsters. An older man named Clyde (Michael Rooker) and his young charge, Minnow (Ariana Greenblat). These two are quite the duo and agree to teach Joel some survival skills as they travel together for a few days. They invite him to come north with them, but he is dead set on finding Aimee and continues on his way with Boy.

I won’t give away much more, but here are a few of my takeaways from Love and Monsters.

Things I liked

1. This movie can be watched with the entire family.

I always appreciate a movie that adults and kids can both enjoy. These days, its getting harder and harder to find film that is appropriate for kids, but that an adults will also like.

2. It is definitely a comedy, which I love, but it’s low on the cheese scale.

3. The underlying morals are clear. Face your fears, your family are the ones you choose, and sometimes things might not work out the way you want, but you will never know unless you try.

4. The cast is fantastic, as I’ve already mentioned.

Things I didn’t like

1. Lack of what actually caused the monster apocalypse. (Wikipedia says that destruction of an asteroid causes a chemical fallout.) The explanation is there, I just wish there had been more to it so the reason was more easily understood.

The list of things I didn’t like is short because I truly loved this movie. I watched it twice with my family and could probably watch it again.

If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and give it a go.