My Monster:

Written and Directed by: Izzy Lee
Starring: Brea Grant, Steve Johansen, and Adam Egypt Mortimer
Length: 8 mins

I think it was just last year I had my first experience with writer/director Izzy Lee’s bizarrely wonderful writing and filmmaking style. Over on Shudder there’s a little eleven minute long film called Innsmouth that both shocked and delighted me, also serving the purpose of showing me something I will likely never unsee, something that would spoil the entire film if I wrote even a single descriptive sentence about it here. Suffice it to say, I loved that film and I became an instantaneous fan of the works of this brilliant and talented director. So I was literally over the moon when she announced that she had reviewer screenings available for her newest film, My Monster, and I can tell you right out the gate that it’s another Izzy Lee knockout punch and it’s eight minutes of amazing that I won’t soon forget, nor do I want to.

In My Monster, Izzy Lee tells the story of Lily (Brea Grant) and her dopy dudebro of a partner Rob (Adam Egypt Mortimer). As Christmas approaches, Lily has been having some disturbing experiences, hearing a voice calling to her from a mysterious presence outside her front window. Two things this writer/director always does: she tells her dark stories with a bit of tongue in cheek humor hovering just beneath the surface, and she leaves you with a visual you won’t soon forget. And in this one, she lets her humor shine through as the dominant factor and while the ending cinematic may not be as starkly shocking as a movie like Innsmouth, it’s made just as unforgettable by virtue of the hilarity it leaves you with.

With pitch-perfect lighting, amazing control of camera angles (kudos to cinematographer Shaheen Seth), and Izzy Lee’s trademark not-so-hidden socio-political message, the film drops just enough sparse backstory on which to stand its characters and manages to tell a large story on a very short strand of cellulose, once again demonstrating this director’s remarkable writing and storytelling chops and her adept ability to bring her vision to life on the screen. If Hollywood hasn’t taken notice of this virtual diamond-in-the-rough, they need to unfuck that soon and give her a shot at a feature-length production. She’s got vision, talent, and imagination and I’ve come to expect the unexpected from her, a promise she delivers on every single time. If you get a chance to view this utterly hilarious, horrifying, and unforgettable film from the mind of an up and coming superstar you should jump on it immediately.

You can watch Innsmouth on Shudder now and you can watch the My Monster teaser here: https://vimeo.com/263984826

About Izzy Lee (director, producer, co-writer):

Izzy Lee is a writer, twice-Rondo Award-nominated filmmaker, and journalist for Birth.Movies.Death., Rue Morgue, and Diabolique, as well as an editor for ScreenAnarchy.

Her recently published short stories include: “Tilberian Holiday” (“Wicked Witches”) and “The Lake Children” (“Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” and “Hydrophobia”). She’s currently at work on several short stories and scripts.

When she’s not writing, she’s making scary little films, often from an outsider perspective with a socio-political bent. Her shorts have screened with such films as Tigers Are Not Afraid, Replace, American Psycho, Prevenge, Baskin, Antibirth, Tigers Are Not Afraid, The Villainess, Replace, Tales of Halloween, They Look Like People, The Love Witch, The Lords of Salem, Midnighters, and The Sacrament.