This Apocalyptic Movie Deserves More Attention

2020 was a weird year for film and television. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many films that were set to be released in theaters were either pushed back, or went straight to streaming services. Some notable examples include Eternals, No Time To Die, Dune, and Top Gun: Maverick, the latter having to wait another two years before a theatrical release.

One film that actually was released in theaters for a single weekend in 2020, from October 16 to 18, was the apocalyptic comedy-drama Love and Monsters starring Dylan O’Brien. Originally scheduled to release in April 2020, the film was pushed numerous times before Paramount decided to release it in select theaters across the US while also making it available to stream on demand.

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Even by April 2021, when Netflix picked up the film, it was available to stream only outside the US. So, for many people, this film flew completely under the radar, which is an absolute shame because it is one of the freshest, most charming dramedy movies to have come out in the last few years.

What Is Love and Monsters About?

Love and Monsters takes place seven years after a global apocalypse, but not the typical apocalypse scenario viewers are used to. In this universe, a fallout occurred after worldly governments fired nuclear missiles at an incoming asteroid. Although they destroyed the asteroid, the pollution from the missiles caused mutations in cold-blooded creatures — including insects, various mollusks, and reptiles — making them enormous and disfigured, but most importantly, dangerous.

The film picks up with the protagonist, Joel Dawson, who was only 16 when the fallout happened and was madly in love with his high school girlfriend, Aimee. On the day of the disaster, Joel lost his parents, and was taken in by a group of survivors. Now, seven years later, he lives in a bunker with the same survivors, working as the cook and tech guy (because he’s deathly afraid of the monsters that lurk outside). After fixing the radio, and cycling through countless other stations, Joel is finally able to get in touch with Aimee, who’s living in a community 85 miles away on a beach.

Joel decides to pack up and leave, hoping to reach Aimee’s colony and rekindle their love at long last. Joel sets off on the journey alone, said to take at least seven days to complete, but finds companionship along the way. With the help from a very intelligent and intuitive dog named Boy, and a group of surface-dwelling survivors named Clyde and Minnow, Joel sets off for the beach, battling giant snails, these parasites called Sand-Gobblers, and eventually a giant mutated crab, all while learning how to survive on his own and understanding the person he’s supposed to be.

How Does Love and Monsters End?

Once Joel finally gets to the beach colony where Aimee lives, he sees that she is actually the one in charge of the community, which is made up of mostly elderly people who couldn’t otherwise take care of themselves. Joel confesses his love to Aimee and explains he made the entire trip so that they could be together, but she reveals that the feeling isn’t mutual. Aimee explains that she’s a changed person, and that she actually fell in love again, but her partner has since passed away. This devastates Joel, and makes him reconsider all the risks he took in journeying to the beach.

Upon Joel’s arrival, a yacht captain, who simply goes by the name Cap, had sailed ashore and informed Aimee and her colony that he and his crew have a safe place for everyone to escape. However, as Joel begins to piece together, Cap and his crew are more like pirates, and they end up taking over the entire colony before robbing them of their food and supplies. Cap releases their secret weapon, a mutated crab attached to their yacht, onto the beach as they sail back to the anchored ship. As Joel and Aimee try to fight the crab, Joel realizes the crab isn’t innately violent, and is only acting out because it is trapped under the control of Cap and his crew via a chain wrapped in wires that zaps the poor creature.

Instead of killing the crab, Joel releases it from the chain and sets it free. The crab uses this opportunity to attack and kill its previous captors on their yacht, and the people of the beach colony are back at peace. Joel, though, realizes that the love he so desired came from his colony all along, and he tells Aimee he must leave to go save them. They share a kiss and Joel treks another seven days until he reaches his colony, where he informs them they must journey to the mountains — where Clyde and Minnow have gone — because the monster threat there is much less. Joel then records a message for all the other colonies to hear over the radio, telling them about the mountains and that it’s time to live on the surface once again, all while giving a list of tips on how to effectively survive the surface world. The movie ends by showing numerous colonies packing up and venturing towards the mountains.

What Makes Love and Monsters So Good?

Love and Monsters, first and foremost, provides a fresh take on an apocalypse scenario. Leaning more towards a Zombieland rather than a Mad Max, the film’s comedy and wit is genuinely funny and enjoyable, accompanied by great acting, strong emotion, and possibly the best dog actor ever in a movie. Each and every character matters, and viewers get such a good presentation of whom each character is, even if they only have a couple lines throughout the entire film. The character development for Joel so naturally progresses, and viewers can truly feel themselves growing with him in real time.

One thing Love and Monsters does really well is how it spreads out the exposition so that viewers aren’t bombarded with backstory in one scene. For example, Joel’s life before the fallout is shown through quick flashbacks throughout the first half of the film. Viewers don’t know what happened to his parents until it is relevant within the ongoing story. As Joel sat feeling helpless after being tossed by a giant centipede, and Boy was trapped in its grasp, he thought back to his parents dying after being crushed while stuck in the car, a situation in which he couldn’t do anything to save them, yet he still blamed himself for their deaths. Now, as Boy was about to meet the same fate, he conjured up the courage to act, and he defeats the centipede and saves Boy, a huge step in Joel’s character development.

Another prominent theme that makes Love and Monsters so good is the idea of love and how it forms itself more in Joel’s eyes as the movie goes on. In Joel’s colony, nearly everyone has coupled up with someone else within the colony, except Joel. Joel was only 16 when he saw Aimee last, and when he finally sees her again, he sees she has matured so much more than he has, where he’s stuck as a lonely, scarred teenager. And so, when she rejects his romantic advances, he thinks the whole journey was for nothing. But really, it was the love he encountered on the way to the beach that was the love he was so desperately searching for. He felt the love from Clyde and Minnow, who were more than willing — even pushing for him — to have him join them to safety, and devastated when he told them he had to go to the beach. Most importantly, he thought his colony didn’t believe in him, and that he couldn’t make the journey, saying to them before he left:

But when he went to contact them from the beach, he saw they had all left loving messages for him on his map, wishing him good luck and safe travels. There, he realized it was never about them not believing in him, it was them loving him so much that they couldn’t bear the idea that anything bad might happen to him. Joel finally realized that the love he desired was there all along, and that’s such a powerful message, because people watching who feel alone might have to just take a step back and stop searching somewhere else for love and companionship, but rather, look at what they have already from a different perspective and embrace it for what it is.