Movie Review: Little Monsters

The zombie genre just got a whole lot more wholesome

Little Monsters is a amazing story of a washed-up rock star and a kindergarten teacher teaming to protect a group of small children from a zombie outbreak. The movie stars Australian actor Alexander England as the main character, Dave, a washed-up musician who doesn't always makes the best choices for himself. Co-staring is the brilliantly talented, and gorgeous Lupita Nyong'o who was seen earlier this year playing in the spectacular Jordan Peele's US. In this movie though, she isn't playing as a mother, and her evil doppelganger, much rather she is Miss Aubrey Caroline, a kindergarten teacher who is quite talented with the ukulele. Together these two seemingly opposite personalities work hard to protect Aubrey's class of innocent children when a zombie outbreak suddenly occurs. Despite what you may know about the genre, Little Monsters is a wholesome rom-com, that happens to have zombies in it (Not that I mind, the world needs more zombie genre based rom-coms).

Little Monsters begins with a rather foul-mouthed montage of Dave and his girlfriend fighting with other over the most petty of things before finally breaking up. After that, Dave awakens on a couch to a small child named Felix, it is quickly revealed that Dave is Felix's uncle, and that Dave is staying with his sister, Tess. It's established right here as well that Felix has a fascination with tractors (trust me this is important for later), we also learn that Felix has a lot of food allergies as well; gluten, milk, cheese, just to name a few. It is because of this he has to have a vegan diet. Upset from the lack of animal by-products Dave goes out and buys a pizza, upon returning though he gets an idea. Next scene he, and Felix are walking down what seems to be an apartment hallway with Felix dressed up as Darth Vader, Dave prompting him to stay in character. Dave finds the apartment he and his girlfriend used to share, and lets Felix in, only for the poor oblivious child to walk in on Dave's girlfriend and her co-worker doing the nasty. Dave rushes in, and berates her, though she argues back saying that he doesn't care about anyone, but himself. Dave angrily grabs his bong, and leaves, almost forgetting Felix. The two boys return home, only for Dave's sister to get extremely upset at him, but you can't blame her as Felix had been sleeping beforehand, has to go to school tomorrow, and walked in on two adults bumping uglies. Despite this, Tess gives him another chance to be a good uncle to Felix by taking him to school the next morning. The morning where Dave drops Felix off at school is when he meets his teacher, Miss Caroline. Taken by how beautiful she is, he immediately starts hitting on her, making up little white lies to make himself seem better then he actually is. Later in the day when he goes to pick Felix up, he overhears that one of the chaperones for the kindergarten's upcoming field trip had to cancel because her child is sick (actually not related to the zombie virus). Seeing the opportunity, Dave volunteers to help watch the kids on the field trip.

Now the night before the trip, Tess goes over with Dave on how to use the epinephrine injector (EpiPen) in case of emergencies, saying, "Blue in the sky, orange in the thigh", simple to remember right? Next scene everyone is now on a school bus heading to Pleasant Valley Farm, and Mini-golf. On the way, Miss Caroline leads the class in singing Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off', much to Dave's dismay. When invited to sing for the group, Dave sings a rather terrible rock song he wrote about how his father left him, luckily they reach their destination before things get too awkward. Upon arrival, the kids take immediate notice that children's show host, Teddy McGiggle (Played by Josh Gad) is there filming a special episode. We all have a fun montage of all the fun everyone is having at the farm, but not too far away, something is going very wrong. At a nearby military base the army was experimenting with reanimation. Of course the zombies escape, and shamble their way towards the farm. While on a tractor ride, the driver stops to go investigate something odd, a zombie ripping apart one of the sheep. During this Miss Caroline and Dave get into a small argument about how he shouldn't swear at kids, meanwhile in the background the woman is attacked by the zombie. The two adults quickly take notice, and Dave hops onto the tractor to start it up with Felix assisting him as Dave doesn't know how tractors work. Miss Caroline impales the zombie onto a tree with a pitchfork before putting a small scarecrow hat onto it. Upon returning to the tractor she reassures to the children that they are okay. However, when returning to the main area, they see that the zombies are everywhere, killing everyone, and blocking the way to the bus. Dave is forced to stop the tractor, as Miss Caroline tells the children that this is simply a spooky version of tag. The class forms a conga line, and are able to evade all the zombies.

The group eventually makes it to the gift shop where Teddy McGiggles had locked himself inside, and refuses to allow anyone else in not wanting to risk the zombies getting in as well. Luckily the class manages to find a small crawlspace that they can go through, though Miss Caroline loses her bum bag (fanny pack) in the process. Dave finds another way in, climbing onto a small silo like structure which then lets him onto the roof, and from there uses his guitar to break a entrance in. After a long fight with Teddy, Dave is able to unlock the room that the crawlspace had led to, letting in the children. Now all safely settled, Miss Caroline reassures the students that there is nothing to fear, it's all a game, and the zombies are fake, which they believe. Teddy tries to say otherwise which leads to Miss Caroline threatening Teddy saying that she doesn't want the kids to be traumatized, he reluctantly agrees to stop his swearing, and play along with the plan. Dave meanwhile finds some chips and hands them out to the children to eat, overlooking how he should've checked the ingredient list before giving it to Felix. Turns out the chips had dairy in them which causes Felix to go into anaphylactic shock. Dave tries to use the injector only to seriously mess it up, forcing Miss Caroline to go out and retrieve the spare injector in Felix's backpack which is located back at the tractor. This is when Miss Caroline truly shines as a certified badass, she takes a shovel and uses it to decapitate numerous amounts of zombies before successfully returning with the backpack, and saving Felix's life. Dave realizes during this scene that he needs to be more careful, and think things more thoroughly. We also get a funny moment where since she is covered in blood, Miss Caroline explains to the kids that she simply got into a messy jam fight.

After this the audience is treated to a very sweet scene where Felix, and Dave recite an old rhyme that Tess taught them both (To Dave as a child, and to Felix as a mother), to help scare away the bad dreams. Once the kids have all fallen asleep, Miss Caroline, and Dave take the time to talk to each other, and get to know each other better. Dave explains to her that he has been a scummy guy the past few years, and that it wasn't his fault that his ex cheated on him. He also talks about his childhood where Tess had to take care of him a lot because their mother was psychotic. Miss Caroline, who insists to Dave to call her Audrey, reveals that when she was a teenager she was a hardcore rebel that always got in trouble, though after volunteering at the school, she realized her passion for teaching. She also reveals to Dave that her engagement ring means nothing, she and her fiance broke up a long time ago, she only kept the ring to keep away flirty single fathers. It is also revealed that Audrey's favorite musician is Neil Diamond. Meanwhile, the military has set up a base outside the farm, planning to bomb it the next morning as they don't the virus spreading anywhere else. The next morning, Dave surprises Audrey with a Ukulele rendition of the Neil Diamond song, 'Sweet Caroline'. I'd be lying if I said this wasn't one of the best scenes in the movie. Afterwards, Audrey, Dave, and Teddy come up with a plan to get them all out of there alive, Teddy suggests taking his McGiggle Mobile as it would be able to fit all of them. Dave, and Teddy go up to the roof to ready themselves for the mission. Teddy reveals that his real name is Nathan Schneider, and he is a self-proclaimed sex-addict. Having a moment of understanding, the two men get to work. Dave starts off by leading the zombies away from where Nathan will be going, then once the zombies are out of that area, Dave follows Teddy to the car only to be locked out of it. Turns out Nathan was intending to drive off by himself. However, things don't work out for the celebrity as the zombie in the back of the car rips him apart. Dave is now forced to climb onto the top of the car's roof as a horde of zombies surround him, it doesn't look good at the moment. At least he was able to receive a call from Tess, who is near the military camp, that he regrets not thanking her before for all the great things she has done. 

Much to Dave's surprise he sees the tractor is moving, but who is driving? It's Felix! He snuck away while the rest of the class was busy, dressed up in a Darth Vader outfit, he easily maneuvers around the zombies making it to the tractor, which thanks for his love of the machine is able to operate easily. Dave jumps aboard with him, and returns tot he gift shop where everyone else loads up. We then notice something very peculiar, but interesting. While Miss Caroline sings for her class she notices that the zombies following them are actually responding to the music, which becomes very clear when she sings 'If you're happy and you know it'. Eventually they come across a barricade of soldiers, but the soldiers only see Dave and Audrey, and at first are ready to shoot them. Though upon hearing the children in the back singing along with the songs, the general breaks protocol, and lets them through letting his military mow down the rest. Even with the gun fire, Miss Caroline reassures that this is all pretend. Once they go through, and come to a stop, Miss Caroline and Dave share a kiss as a bomb goes off in the background, "Fireworks!" she tells the children. They are all detained by the military, and taken into quarantine, which is explained in the next scene when the general confronts the group of concerned parents, reassuring that they will be just fine as they have two great teachers. Tess is taken aback, surprised, and happy to hear how her brother had stepped up. We then cut to the final shot in the movie, the class in quarantine all having a fun time as they all sing Taylor Swift's 'Shake it Off'.

All in all, it may not be Shawn of the Dead, but it's pretty damn close in terms of greatness. If you haven't watched this yet, I highly suggest you do as it is available on Hulu right now. This cheerful take on the zom-rom-com genre gets a 5 out of 5!