How to Make a Monster starts with Faye Clayton (producer Colleen Camp) firing her team of software programmer's when the latest game called 'Evilution' that they are working on receives disastrous test previews & the search is on for a new team. This is where Peter Drummond (Steven Culp), Bug (Jason Marsden), Hardcore (Tyler Mane) & the obligatory black guy Sol (Karim prince) step in & take over. The brief is they need to turn 'Evilution' into a really scary game in one month, if they succeed they will earn a $1 million bonus, Clayton also gives them intern Laura Wheeler (Clea DuVall) as a general dogsbody. How to Make a Monster then cuts to 'Three Weeks Later' as the game nears completion, Hardcore has designed the weapons & monsters, Bug has developed the music & sound effects & Sol has programed a new form of artificial intelligence while Peter does what bosses do. One night a lightning strike causes a power overload which in turn makes a motion capture suit come to life & start acting out 'Evilution' as if it were real. Peter, Laura, Sol, Bug & Hardcore all become targets of the killer game & it's robotic suit...
Written & directed by George Huang I personally thought How to Make a Monster was a very poor attempt at horror. The script has no relation to the original How to Make a Monster (1958) apart form it's title, there are so many things fundamentally wrong with this film it's untrue. The whole concept sucks & Huang obviously doesn't know anything about technology as How to Make a Monster has no factual basis or notion of reality at all, motion capture suits coming to life? How can it walk & operate before it kills Sol? How can the mainframe computer control it with no visible wires? Radio control, I don't think so. Only three people to program one game? These days it takes dozens of talented programmer's to develop a good game & a hell of a lot longer than a month. I could go on, but I won't. The title How to make a Monster refers to the films hidden meaning, the moral message if you will. You see How to Make a Monster is all about people turning into monsters because of greed, jealousy & ambition. I bet Huang thought he was really clever coming up with that double meaning title. The characters are uniformly unlikable & clichéd, Sol & Bug in particular are highly irritating to endure. Technically How to Make a Monster isn't too bad considering it's TV limitations, director Huang fails to create any sort of tension or atmosphere which is what a good horror film is all about. The kills are all off screen & have no build up whatsoever, when at the end it finally looks as if we might get a decent sequence involving the monster the film keeps cutting to awful in game computer footage, maybe to save money? It breaks up & dilutes any sort of excitement the climatic fight might had, very poor. There are a few computer game/film references, an Evil Dead video game poster keeps turning up in the background, a Tales From the Crypt pinball machine & a scene where the monster rips someones head off complete with dangling spinal cord which obviously is meant to pay homage to Mortal Kombat & it's infamous gory 'Fatalities'. As a whole the violence is restrained with the aforementioned head & spinal cord ripping, another severed head & a cut off hand. The monster itself as it adds bits of human bodies to itself looks pretty cool but is barely used, it's past the 40 minute mark before it does anything. The acting is poor from all involved & watch out for actress Julie Strain who complains about having to go nude, again considering her other work I suppose director Huang thought this would be a funny in joke of some sort. It isn't. Overall there really isn't anything by which I can recommend How to Make a Monster & in actual fact I think it should be retitled to How to Make a Monstrosity of a Film. One to avoid.
Written & directed by George Huang I personally thought How to Make a Monster was a very poor attempt at horror. The script has no relation to the original How to Make a Monster (1958) apart form it's title, there are so many things fundamentally wrong with this film it's untrue. The whole concept sucks & Huang obviously doesn't know anything about technology as How to Make a Monster has no factual basis or notion of reality at all, motion capture suits coming to life? How can it walk & operate before it kills Sol? How can the mainframe computer control it with no visible wires? Radio control, I don't think so. Only three people to program one game? These days it takes dozens of talented programmer's to develop a good game & a hell of a lot longer than a month. I could go on, but I won't. The title How to make a Monster refers to the films hidden meaning, the moral message if you will. You see How to Make a Monster is all about people turning into monsters because of greed, jealousy & ambition. I bet Huang thought he was really clever coming up with that double meaning title. The characters are uniformly unlikable & clichéd, Sol & Bug in particular are highly irritating to endure. Technically How to Make a Monster isn't too bad considering it's TV limitations, director Huang fails to create any sort of tension or atmosphere which is what a good horror film is all about. The kills are all off screen & have no build up whatsoever, when at the end it finally looks as if we might get a decent sequence involving the monster the film keeps cutting to awful in game computer footage, maybe to save money? It breaks up & dilutes any sort of excitement the climatic fight might had, very poor. There are a few computer game/film references, an Evil Dead video game poster keeps turning up in the background, a Tales From the Crypt pinball machine & a scene where the monster rips someones head off complete with dangling spinal cord which obviously is meant to pay homage to Mortal Kombat & it's infamous gory 'Fatalities'. As a whole the violence is restrained with the aforementioned head & spinal cord ripping, another severed head & a cut off hand. The monster itself as it adds bits of human bodies to itself looks pretty cool but is barely used, it's past the 40 minute mark before it does anything. The acting is poor from all involved & watch out for actress Julie Strain who complains about having to go nude, again considering her other work I suppose director Huang thought this would be a funny in joke of some sort. It isn't. Overall there really isn't anything by which I can recommend How to Make a Monster & in actual fact I think it should be retitled to How to Make a Monstrosity of a Film. One to avoid.