Review: Monsturd DVD

“It’s not just a movie, it’s movement!”-Beth Horne/Dale Posner, San Francisco Examiner

It's not the heir to Street Trash or Troma, but for a few bucks you can do a lot worse than Monsturd, shot with camcorders by non-actors for $3,000 plus production costs. It's not as good as it could have been but decent enough to suppress the urge to want it remade by others on a bigger budget.

Read reviews if you want plot. All you need to know is that a 7' rubber turd monster is killing the citizens of Butte County, CA and the diaper-armored police's last line of defense are super soakers filled with Pepto Bismol and a million flies.

There's poop jokes but no poop puns. They drop the "S" bomb way too much and it would have been more clever if they used every euphemism in the book for s--t instead. My favorite bit is when the police cruise around town with a megaphone telling citizens to not use their bathrooms. After listing alternatives like crap in a bucket and throw it out the window like in the olds days, he says "The world's your oyster on this one, people!" It's such a Brian Regan kind of line.

The commentary is great because you find out how they lucked into locations, filmed at work and enlisted co-workers and family members to speak lines. In some scenes actors are looking at and holding their scripts! Monsturd isn't Plan 9 but there's just no acting going on. The project looks like a hoot though, and you have to give them credit for making it happen.

While not a major motion picture, Monsturd is a major camcorder event not to be missed by b-movie kooks and coprophiliacs of all ages.