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Momo: The Missouri Monster Review
Loading...Momo: The Missouri Monster Review
Lyle Blackburn– Host
(check out the rest of the cast here
Directed by Seth Breedlove
Screenplay by Mark Matzke, Jason Utes, and Seth Breedlove
Distributed by Small Town Monsters
https://www.smalltownmonsters.com/
Momo: The Missouri Monster is the latest offering from writer/director Seth Breedlove and the fine folks at Small Town Monsters and it’s very different from the previous Small Town Monsters movies that I’ve seen. How different? Instead of a documentary about a monster of some sort, Momo is part documentary, part fake TV show hosted by renowned monster hunter Lyle Blackburn, and part mega low budget monster movie. It’s an odd combination that struggles a bit at the beginning, but once it establishes a rhythm it’s not that bad. I think I would have preferred a mega low budget monster movie and a full on documentary about the monster used as inspiration for the mega low budget monster movie as two separate things, but at the same time I like that Breedlove and company are doing something quite unexpected. I mean, when I first heard about Momo, I thought it was going to be another documentary about a monster and nothing more.
So the premise of Momo is that Blackburn hosts a show called Blackburn’s Cryptid Case Files, which is a sort of weekly(?) documentary news magazine type show where Blackburn examines the history of a monster legend somewhere in the United States (and maybe Canada). For the episode he’s hosting in Momo, he’s looking at two things, the real life history of a giant Bigfoot type monster that was spotted in Louisiana, Missouri back in 1972, a monster that was named Momo. Black burn is also hosting the first ever TV screening of a low budget creature feature that was made back in 1975 based on the Momo story and meant to cash in on the then low budget monster movie craze that was apparently happening (The Legend of Boggy Creek inspired a lot of this). Now, the Momo movie that Blackburn screens was apparently never screened anywhere and was considered “lost,” but somehow Blackburn was able to get a copy of it and show it on his TV program.
And so Momo switches back and forth between Blackburn’s documentary about the actual event and the “lost” low budget movie. The first two switches are jarring and seemingly at random (no TV show would have breaks like this), but after that the switches aren’t as egregious. The documentary parts play like all of the previous Small Town Monsters documentaries that I’ve seen. They’re engrossing and fascinating, especially when Blackburn starts interviewing the locals. It’s cool to see how the original Momo story grew and affected people living in the actual town back in the early 1970’s. As for the “lost” Momo movie, that’s a bit hit and miss.
Now, when the “lost” movie starts and we see the Momo monster, which is just a man in a suit, attack two young women in a VW Bug, the “lost” movie is actually pretty cool. It’s even almost scary. But because we never get to see the whole “lost” movie as a movie, just as snippets in between documentary segments, the “lost” movie fails to generate the necessary momentum to be anything other than random vignettes, and some of them work better than other segments.
The “lost” movie also tries very hard to look like a long lost, mega low budget monster movie from the old days, where mega low budget monster movies played at drive-ins and grindhouses and whatnot, with a sometimes faded, red look and scratches on the film stock. The actors make a good faith effort to mimic the kind of “bad” acting that permeated those kinds of movies. However, because the “lost” movie was obviously made via modern means and the actors never quite look like actors from back in the day making a movie from back in the day, the “lost” movie never looks authentic. At best, the “lost” movie is a kind of homage to those kinds of movies, not the “real” thing. Keeping all of that straight is kind of distracting if you start thinking about it and, yeah, you’re going to start thinking about it while watching it.
I would really like to see the “lost” movie as its own thing, as a “real” movie. It’s obvious that director Breedlove has a knack for making documentaries and that, if he committed to it, he could make an interesting, somewhat creepy monster movie. Maybe Breedlove or someone else involved with Small Town Monsters will do a full on monster movie next? If and when that happens, I’m down for it.
So Momo: The Missouri Monster is an interesting experiment. The documentary part of the movie is, as usual, fascinating, while the new “mega low budget monster movie” part is a work in progress. Some of the movie works, and some of it doesn’t. Still, while it’s not as wholly satisfying as something like On the Trail of… Bigfoot, it’s still worth checking out. There’s more good stuff than middling stuff.
So track down and check out Momo: The Missouri Monster. See it, see it, see it. It’s an interesting, fascinating experiment. What will Small Town Monsters do next?
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: Maybe 1.
Explosions: 1. Sort of.
Nudity?: None.
Doobage: A Louis Mink quote, a Roger Corman quote, a Predator homage, attempted picnic, monster attack, horn beeping, car holding, multiple interviews, bullshit about UFOs, two kids fucking around, off screen dog killing, flipping back and forth between a documentary and a movie, weird lights in the sky, talk of end of the world, a family dinner, a posse, the woods, a pile of human bones, a shooting, a full on lights in the sky attack, and an ending.
Kim Richards?: Attempted.
Gratuitous: Lyle Blackburn, a fake movie trailer from 1975, The Curse of Bigfoot, Snowbeast, a warning that the movie is dangerous, young women in an old VW Bug, talk of salmonella, Louisiana, Missouri, a rotary phone, “monsters are afraid of Dads,” a bunny, owl, and deer all scurrying off in sort of slow motion, monster vision, bullshit about UFOs, stuff happening in the woods, and an ending.
Best lines: “I can’t believe you’re dragging me eight hours to see Alice Cooper. Disgusting!,” “Do you smell that? What kind of a creature makes a smell like that?,” “We saw the boogeyman! We saw the boogeyman!,” “What in the world is going on around here?,” “What did we just witness?,” “You can’t keep putting your family through this. Wake. Up,” “Stay! Out! Of! My! Woods!,” “Is that it? Is that the creature?,” “Groovy!,” and “Fireflies? Those aren’t fireflies!”
