Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival January 27,2019
Plot (Spoiler Alert)
While a kindergarten class is on a field trip, zombies break loose from a military base. Miss Caroline, the teacher of the group, does everything she can to protect the children, not just from being attacked by the zombies, but also make sure their childhood spirits remain the same. Miss Caroline makes the children believe everything that is happening is all pretend.
Blaine: I was starting to get tired of the zombie genre because there is so many movies involving zombies, but it always finds a way to be attractive again. Abe Forsythe’s son has different allergies and Abe would look after him all the time. When it was time for the kid to start kindergarten, Abe was nervous because he didn’t know if his son would be ok. Abe has been taking care of his son and to have the fate of his son in someone else’s hands was concerning. But the kindergarten teacher was very responsible and Abe’s son felt comfortable around her. Abe had learned that kindergarten teachers do whatever they can to look after other people’s children. Abe attended a petting zoo field trip with his son’s kindergarten class and zombies just popped up in his head. Abe never thought about making a zombie movie in his career, but while he was on that field trip he asked himself how would you protect twenty five kids from zombies? And that’s how the idea for “Little Monsters” began. The kindergarten teacher had proven herself to be trustworthy and if there was a zombie apocalypse Abe would know his son would be in good hands.
Lupita Nyong’o started off her career doing a drama, “12 Years a Slave”, and she showed how good of an actress she is with a powerful dramatic performance. Then Lupita showed she can be badass when she was involved with “Black Panther”. Lupita wanted to show she can also do comedy. “Little Monsters” was unlike anything Lupita had read before and she loved that it had a lot to it besides zombies and humor. Miss Caroline, the kindergarten teacher, reminded Lupita of one of her favorite characters in life, Fraulein Maria, from “The Sound of Music”, because this is a character who devotes her life to the children and sings to them as well. Miss Caroline will do whatever it takes to protect those children. Miss Caroline is just getting started in fighting zombies and already she’s a pro by decapitating them. She’ll step up to a thousand zombies just save the life of one child. Another thing Miss Caroline will do is threaten anyone who cusses in front of the children. Credit goes to Abe for writing Miss Caroline as a fighter. The other credit goes to Lupita Nyong’o for bringing a bit of her bad ass self in the character.
Lupita watched a ton a zombie movies just to understand how the genre worked. Zombie movies have a lot of similarities to them with a new virus escaping a lab and spreading all around the world, people surviving the zombie apocalypse by fighting zombies,….filmmakers also have fun with the genre by making it funny, but there are different ways to tell a story that take place in the zombie apocalypse and have it focus on something else first. Like at the beginning of “Little Monsters” it doesn’t start off with zombies or virus first spread, it starts off with a character named David and the situation he is going through. David has just gone through a breakup after having a long time relationship with his girlfriend and it’s hard on him, but that’s not the only reason he is upset. Life has been hard on him. He had a mom and dad who were terrible at the parenting job. David’s sister has looked after him his whole life, he crashes with her after the breakup and she has a son, Felix, who is based on Abe’s son because he has all these allergies. The problem with David is he acts like a child, he needs to grow up. David is also a man having trouble leaving the past behind him. David wants to re-live the days when he was apart of a band, he does nothing basically, but smokes weed and masterbates.
David meets Miss Caroline while dropping Felix off at school and he finds her attractive, but there’s more to Miss Caroline than looking attractive, she has a pure spirit. David tries to impress Miss Caroline by acting cool, but that never does anything. David offers to assist Miss Caroline in helping her look after the kids on the field trip, even though he’s irresponsible in taking care of kids. But this field trip turns his life around. After encountering zombies and finding shelter, David does everything he can to help Miss Caroline protect the children. David even finds out he is not the only one who’s had things rough in life.
Teddy McGiggle who is the star of this children’s television show is at the petting zoo and it’s a treat for the children. But when things go bad, Teddy shows his true colors. Teddy admits to David he has had a bunch of affairs.
And then there’s Miss Caroline. Her life wasn’t great in the beginning because she screwed it up, but she managed to pull it back together and found a purpose in life. David be’s honest with Miss Caroline and tells her what his story is. David feels good to express himself and he is finding his sweet and caring self. And the more Miss Caroline and David get to know each other the more they develop feelings and really see something in each other. David is also becoming good with kids.
Music is a big part of “Little Monsters”. Miss Caroline sings tons of songs to the children while playing a ukulele and Lupita Nyong’o sounds like she could pass a musician. Lupita is an experienced actress and she has written a book, she can do anything. Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” is used three times in “Little Monsters”. It took a while to get permission to use the song in the film. One of the things that attracted Lupita Nyong’o to “Little Monsters” was the song “Shake it Off”, but Abe was still waiting for Taylor Swift’s answer if they could use the song in the film or not. Lupita was able to help. One time Lupita was having a bad day and her friend cheered her up by having them dance to “Shake it Off”. Lupita contacted Taylor Swift and told her what that song meant to her and Taylor approved of the song being used in “Little Monsters” after that.
“Little Monsters” is the second zombie comedy I’ve seen that has made a reference to “Star Wars” after “Dead Snow 2”. Felix, the nephew, likes to dress up as Darth Vader in order to find his strength, plus it’s fun to play a “Star Wars” character, and when David is in trouble, Felix goes to help and manages to dodge a lot of zombies on the way. The force is strong with this one. David and Felix grab the others and manage to make it to safety.
The parents of the children who were on the field trip were worried sick about them with zombies wandering around. But Miss Caroline and David did everything they could not just by making sure they weren’t eaten alive, but also make sure the children didn’t know what was going on while there were zombies surrounding them. It’s important that children enjoy themselves while they are still young and not be damaged by images of people being ripped apart or insides being pulled out. The parents must be very grateful to Miss Caroline and David and think of them as guardian angels for doing a spectacular job at protecting their children.
David is happy with joy at the end because his nephew and the other kids are safe, he has found his perfect match, Miss Caroline, and he is a new and better man. David won’t go back to the man he was before. I think David has also found himself a new career in being a kindergarten teacher, sense the rockstar dream is dead.
My rating on “Little Monsters” is five out of five stars
