Cancer-stricken Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) is recovering from surgery when Jacob, her boyfriend of five years, breaks up with her. Jacob is a playwright and director who had promised Laura the lead in his new feminist musical, but after their relationship ends, he avoids all contact with her.
While Laura recovers in her childhood home, she encounters a monster in her closet (Tommy Dewey), who has apparently been living there her entire life. With her mother constantly traveling, Monster – as Laura calls him – has grown adept at living alone, and he orders her out of the house in two weeks. Despite a rough start to their living situation, the two begin bonding over movies and plays, leading to an unlikely friendship. When she lands an understudy role in Jacob’s musical, Monster teaches Laura to speak up for herself, leading to unfortunate consequences for all involved.
With horror and rom-coms being my two favorite movie genres, it was a no-brainer that I would see Your Monster as soon as possible. I’m a big fan of Melissa Barrera’s work, and I thoroughly enjoyed Tommy Dewey’s performance as the comically dark, sharply-tongued Michael O’Donoghue on Saturday Night (2024).
Dewey relishes this particularly juicy role as Monster, delivering ferociousness and snark while covered in prosthetics. And yet, there’s also a vulnerability to the character that Dewey so effortlessly expresses in his eyes that most of the time, you almost forget he’s a beast. And you certainly root for him to win Laura over.
Barrera once again gets to show off her strong musical background, but she’s a surprisingly strong comedic actress as well. Laura comes across as a woman who’s clearly on the verge of a major mental breakdown, and Monster seems to be the only “person” in her life not afraid to call her out on her destructive personality traits.
Barrera is so affable and radiant on screen, and it’s clear to me that while her role in the Scream franchise may be dead, she still has a very promising career in the genre, should she want it. The bonus to two strong performances is that Barrera and Dewey also share some great chemistry, which is why this otherwise ridiculous premise works so well. He’s a monster! She’s a human! How will they make this work?
The supporting cast takes a backseat to Laura and Monster, but Edmund Donovan, as Jacob, is one of the most hateable ex-boyfriends in rom-com history. Smug, pretentious, and completely lacking in empathy toward Laura’s plight, it’s hard to feel any sympathy when Laura’s ultimate revenge plot jeopardizes his precious opening night.
Meghann Fahy is Jackie, the TV actress who unknowingly “stole” Laura’s role in the musical – I appreciated that, as it was clear she and Jacob were perhaps hooking up, director and writer Caroline Lindy didn’t turn Jackie into a one-dimensional, bitchy rival to Laura. Every character in the film felt as though they had depth; they were people you probably knew in your own life. There was nothing too over the top that took you out of the reality of the movie – other than, you know, the monster living in Laura’s closet!
I will say, Your Monster has the rom (who doesn’t love it when the romantic lead is caught off guard by a beautiful woman walking down the stairs?), the com (just wait until you see where Monster likes to sleep), and a good dose of what the f*ck horror. The ending was both captivating and unexpected, but I have to admit I absolutely loved the direction it took. I am positive some may find it contrived or even predictable, but I didn’t really see it coming. No spoilers, of course, but I found myself asking “Wait, what?” more than once when it ended.
As a bonus, I found quite a few parallels to Lisa Frankenstein, and if you’re into an entertaining horror rom-com double feature, watch that movie, followed by Your Monster. I can’t think of a better way to spend Halloween for the spooky rom-com lovers.
Watched: 10/27/2024
Notable Song: My Stranger by Melissa Barrera
