The point of Monsters seems to be to provide an arthouse, underground take on the psychological monster movie. This basically a version of Jaws, with the rarely seen creatures looming in the background like a boogeyman. Their presence is mostly in our heads and in those of the main characters, who spend the bulk of their journey(it isn't much of a trip, to be honest) alternately flirting and biting eachother's heads off. She's engaged to some loser back in the States. He's got a kid he never gets to see. Their relationship is pure fluff, but they do have a sortof chaotic chemistry to them. Maybe that's because McNairy and Able are real life man and wife. The bulk of the extras and supporting characters are non-actors, filmmed using ad libbed dialogue acquired during the hundreds of hours of filming. The microbudgeted production(at around$500,000) squeezes as much as they can from very few resources.
But comparisons to District 9 are false, and unfortunately that seems to be the very easy analysis most people are making. Monsters never approaches the immigration issue with any real passion. It's just sortof implied, and isn't any real factor in the story. The monsters are impressive, but you'd think a movie called 'Monsters' might actually feature them more than twice. When they do appear, primarily at the conclusion, they are massive but a little cheesy looking. Maybe it's the sound effects given to the creatures, which sound like cooing birds and not at all harmless. That's likely the point Edwards is trying to make, that for all our demonizing of them, illegal aliens are harmless. It's a valid point to make, but a clearer job could've been done following through on it. Perhaps with a wider budget Monsters could've fulfilled the promise everyone else seems to be heaping upon it. For now, it's an average creature feature at best.
