Monolith (2022) – Film Review

Director: Matt Vesely
Cast: Lily Sullivan, Ling Cooper, TangAnsuya Nathan
Certificate: 15

By Roger Crow

Though there are echoes of other classic sci-fi movies like Arrival, 2001 and Contact, new low budget offering Monolith is very much its own movie.

Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise) plays a disgraced journalist who attempts to save her career by turning to investigative podcasting. But is a strange artefact really linked to an alien conspiracy?

Well, that would be telling, but this slow-burn drama is a brilliantly crafted yarn which keeps you watching throughout because of its simple format: mainly one actor in an impressive Grand Designs-style house interviewing mostly unseen people about weird black bricks that seem to dominate their life. So yes, it is a bit like those urban myth movies like The Ring, in all its incarnations.

Sullivan does a great job of sustaining the attention throughout, which was a big ask considering the bulk of the movie rests on her shoulders.

“Growing feeling of unease”

The protagonist’s descent into madness is also an inevitable character development, and when my buffering screener went blank, I did wonder if it was part of the movie or just a bad ‘net connection. It turned out to be the latter.

Written by Lucy Campbell, and ably directed by Matt Vesely, this is a fabulous slice of intelligent drama which blurs the lines between fantasy, horror and psychological thriller.

Eschewing the ‘quiet, quiet BANG’ format that so many filmmakers opt for, instead there’s a growing feeling of unease. You never know where this is going, which is very refreshing, and one of the final shots involving a turtle is hugely satisfying.

For my money it’s one of the best thrillers of the year.