Movie Review: Momo – The Missouri Monster
On a lazy Saturday night I was asked if I’d like to take a look at a movie for review. As you’ve probably guessed, the movie in question was Momo: The Missouri Monster. (henceforth referred to here at MTMO) Up for anything and having a penchant for liking B grade sci-fi I stepped up and volunteered for duty. I tell you all that to tell you that, even with those low expectations, I was utterly disappointed in this movie at every level. Here’s why.
MTMO bills itself as a docudrama, a blending of documentary and fictional storytelling to tell a story. In this case the story in question is about a cryptozoological figure, Momo, who was the Missouri equivalent of Bigfoot for a period of times in the 1970’s. I have no problem with the concept and was looking forward to seeing what this show had to offer. In fact, I’ve enjoyed other shows of this nature in the past. Ideally, you would like to provide a fictional account that is entertaining and gives some visuals to the informative parts of the video. Unfortunately, MTMO fails on both accounts.
I’m going to start off with the documentary portion of the movie. Ideally, this should be the easiest portion of the movie and the one which, even if time consuming, a slam dunk to deliver. You know what your topic is and you know what you want to educate your viewing audience on. Whether you believe in crypto-zoology, Bigfoot or Momo, the purpose of this movie is, ostensibly, to give you some reason to wonder or believe in this account. They featured several “prominent” crypto-zoologists in the movie itself. However, the documentary portion of the film focuses more on the history of the town, the ironically named Louisiana, Missouri. When we do get interview quotes about the, reportedly, factual incidents in the 1970’s we get a group of people who scoff at the incident or don’t remember it. Couple that with most of the “factual” accounts of the central encounter are encapsulated in the fictional part of the film. So, let’s go there.
I had already heard of the Momo incidents before watching this movie and was looking forward to the fictional portion of this program to see what the people at Small Town Monsters would come up with. The narrator tells us that this portion of the film is part of a 1975 film about the incident that was never released. Okay, that’s fine and we got some nostalgic shots of the “beast-man” horror movies of the era for our trouble. The “movie” then begins and it starts off fairly well in tone and tenor. The acting was suitably bad and the dialogue met the requisite level of cheesiness. The film grain and color were also period correct and I was hopeful. However, if you are doing a period piece it is incumbent upon you that you do everything you can to complete the illusion of age you are trying to convey. The film team started off well and then failed at many of the small details and two HUGE big ones. First, the small details. It may not seem like much, and many may miss these details, but small things like wardrobe or background items can make a huge difference in a period piece. One need only look to this past season of Game of Thrones where a Starbuck’s cup made its way into Westeros somehow. In the case of this movie, there are various instances where a wardrobe or background item scream out that they don’t belong on set. In one incident, a man is wearing an obvious pair of new Rayban sunglasses in an otherwise period accurate 1970’s outfit. These little things mar the experience and the illusion the filmmaker is hoping to achieve.
However,when big things are overlooked the illusion is destroyed. There are two glaring issues in the fictional part of this film.
First is the video quality. While there are parts of the movie that have had a video grain filter applied to them, it is not universal across the fictional part of the film. This is glaring and grating. Additionally, the movie was not shot film and it retains the visual clarity of a digital recording. While it was not necessary to shoot the movie on film, it was necessary to manipulate the image later to try and approximate the analog clarity of 1970’s film. This mistake is further compounded when they splice in actual 1970’s horror film footage thus illustrating what exactly is missing.
The second issue is also glaringly bad and I’m conflicted as to whether it was a mistake or intentional. There are several instances in the movie that require special effects. I’ve included one picture here that illustrates one of those instances. As you can see here, the movie employs a modern CGI lightning affect layered directly on top of a shot that is trying, but failing, to look like it came out of the 1970’s. The lighting, visual quality, etc all scream out that one of these things is not like the other.
MTMO promised me an informative but fun look at the Momo incidents in 1972. It failed on both accounts. The movie does not contain much factual information at all and what information it does present is either undercut or presented within a fictional element. In fact, they have one woman on admitting that she hoaxed some Momo footprints during the time the incidents were taking place. The fictional elements of the film are also a failure, failing to create and maintain the illusion of “found footage”. This film might have been something hilariously informative but instead it was a chore. Bad in all the worst ways instead of bad in all the best ways.
Acting – 2 of 5 Stars
Cinematography – 1 of 5 Stars
Production – 2 of 5 Stars
Writing – 1.5 of 5 Stars
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Production Company – Small Town Monsters
Director – Seth Breedlove
Author Profile
- Nemesis is a poet, writer and author of the upcoming novel The Long Game. He is a writer of science fiction and supernatural thrillers. Besides novels and short stories he writes for UK based ASAP Comics developing new stories for Level 8 and OPSEC. Nem is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and tries to bring those experiences into his writing.
He lives and works out of his home in Riverside, California with his wife and three children. When not writing he enjoys reviewing comic books and graphic novels for ComicCrusaders.com and living the Southern California life with his family.
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