The Monster

Kathy, a divorced mother struggling with alcoholism, is driving her young daughter Lizzy through the night to see the girl's father when an accident on a remote forest road brings the car to a halt. A large tooth left behind at the scene suggests they struck something that does not belong to any animal they know. Stranded in a storm with no way to drive on, the two set out on foot for help, and it gradually becomes clear that something in the darkness is watching them and intends to keep them from leaving the woods alive. The threat forces mother and daughter to confront the damage in their own relationship as they try to survive.

Bryan Bertino wrote and directed this Canadian-American production, and also produced it with William Green and Richard Suckle. It is the third of the five features he has directed, arriving between Mockingbird and The Dark and the Wicked, and it followed his earlier work as the writer-director of The Strangers. Zoe Kazan plays Kathy and Ella Ballentine plays Lizzy, with Aaron Douglas, Christine Ebadi, Marc Hickox and Scott Speedman in supporting roles.

Made for a budget of 3 million US dollars, the film received a critics' rating of 6.9 out of 10 from 48 reviews, noticeably higher than its audience scores of 5.4 out of 10 on IMDb, from around 21,000 votes, and 5.5 out of 10 on TMDB, from a much smaller pool of 618 votes.