The most recent discussion regarding technological advancements has been about how robots would take over the world. As computers and technology have taken over and begun to play a larger role in our lives, we are continuously one step away from crossing our borders, and nearly anything designed for the goal of convenience comes at a great cost. Unfortunately, when it comes to exploiting our computer-related phobias, horror as a genre has a bad track record. This 2001 horror picture, on the other hand, was ahead of its time and successfully brought real-world concerns to life on screen.
The third installment of Stan Winston’s Creature Features film remake series, starring Steven Culp and Clea DuVall, is How to Make a Monster. Creature Features is a bundle of five remakes of American International Pictures films from the archives. Stan Winston, a nine-time Academy Award nominee, collaborated on the special effects for each of the made-for-cable films with producers Colleen Camp and Sam’s son, Lou Arkoff.
Julie Strain made a cameo appearance in the film as herself. How to Make a Monster debuted on Cinemax on October 14, 2001. It is part of the Creature Features series, which also includes She-Creature, The Day the World Ended, Teenage Caveman (do not cry… do not lift your eye…), and Earth vs the Spider, all of which are now available on your choice of shining five-inch platter.
While this film is a remake of the original How to Make a Monster from 1958, the similarities end there. The new film’s plot revolves around a software company that is striving to build a terrifying video game that can compete with Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and other similar titles.
Their only problem is that the monster they have developed so far in the game is not scary enough. As a result, the software development team is laid off with less than a month till the game’s release. A new group of people is employed, and they compete for a $1 million prize if they can improve the game in any way that will make it more appealing to the public.
A Virtual Nightmare – How to Make a Monster (2001)
The film opens with the visuals of a video game which turns into a test group for the video game consisting of young children. The kids don’t find the monster scary at all. They make fun of it and their game, Evil-ution, ultimately fails. The game’s monster is a farce, and the present programmers have been replaced by a quirkier, off-kilter group.
Clayton Software replaces them with Sol (Karim Prince), a paranoid artificial intelligence genius, Bug (Jason Marsden, who incidentally does a lot of voice work for video games and films in real life), a geeky musician, and Hardcore (Tyler Mane), a musclebound weapons maniac. At the same time, Peter Drummond oversees this mishmash of a group (Steven Culp). Lauren, the intern, played by Clea DuVall, is caught in the midst.
Faye Clayton, the company’s CEO, shows up after they are hired and offers $1 million to whoever creates the scariest game. The prize money ends up igniting a rivalry among the trio. The rivalry is quite intense, and the team continuously tries to sabotage each other’s progress. There is constant physical and verbal fighting shown between them, along with a sort of insecurity that they harbor about being “nerds”. This ultimately stops when Laura gets Peter to intervene and make their fight end.
Despite constant power surges in their building, resulting in data loss from time to time, they manage to form a cohesive game using a computer network-integrated motion capture outfit three weeks later. They called an actress to wear a motion-capture suit which would not only form the basis of the character of the game but to give a more realistic look to the character’s movements as well.
However, during the motion testing, there is another power surge that leads the suit to control the actress. Lightning strikes the structure, resulting in a blackout and the loss of their data. Thankfully, Sol has a backup disk, which has to be uploaded onto the mainframe.
Since Peter doesn’t know anything about programming as such, to decide who would do the work, the four of them decide to compete by playing their game. The one who loses first is the one who would stay overnight to monitor the backup as it would take all night. Sol is eventually picked to remain behind and oversee the backup as well as make changes in the game.
While working that night, Sol finishes his AI chip. Once the plugs his new AI chip into the mainframe computer, the suit somehow gets activated and starts moving and working on its own. It drags Sol under the table and kills it. The following day when Hardcore and Bug walk into the office, they discover Sol’s body on the floor. They decide to hide the body because reporting it would delay the launch of the game; it would also mean one less person to compete with for the bonus.
So, Hardcore hid Sol’s body just in time as Laura and Peter walked in. Later, when Hardcore is working, he finds the backup CD missing. To verify who actually killed Sol, Hardcore decides to take a look at the security camera’s footage and finds out how Sol got attacked by the suit.
Next, he sees Sol’s body fused to the suit, and he is then attacked by the suit. Peter and Laura think that Sol and Hardcore are just fighting in general again. When they go to intervene, they see him beating Sol’s already dead body with a weapon. He tells all of them to leave the room, but just then, the suit decapitates him. It takes some parts of his body and weapons to better resemble one of the game’s monsters, and it even starts wearing some of the weapons Hardcore had used to design the monster.
By this time, the group has seen the suit control the dead bodies of the former team members and control them. They try their best to shut the entire system down to any avail. Peter then asks Bug the reason for this, which Bug theorises as a result of the lightning strike, Sol’s chip, and Hardcore’s system rewrite, which probably caused the suit to believe the real world is part of the game.
The computer started playing the game on its own and controlling the suit as well, making it a real-life monster. Bug, Laura, and Peter Drummond try to shut down the computer and wipe the game’s data to stop the beast. However, the security system fails and traps them inside the building without any escape.
While the others are scrambling to find a way to get out of the budling, Bug is attacked by the monster. In an attempt to kill the beast, he exposes a gas line and ignites it with his lighter, killing both himself and the beast. Despite this, the suit comes back to life somehow and tries to kill Drummond; however, Laura figures out that the game and real-life are syncing into one and saves him by killing the in-game monster. She tries to beat the game in order to escape. While playing, she grows frustrated and upset when she loses a life in the game until Drummond proposes she use a virtual reality headset and promises to accompany her throughout the battle.
She realizes he left her in the middle of the game before the real-world monster returns. At first, she thinks the monster got to him. Then she flees to the kitchen to get away from the monster, where she discovers footage of Drummond swiping the backup CD on Hardcore’s handheld PC. This enrages her, and she subsequently tracks down Drummond. On being confronted, he tries to convince her that he did this to survive the industry when in reality, he was a greedy and money-hungry man who would sabotage anyone in his way to get fame and money.
She shoots him in the knee after he mocks her and lets the monster murder him. She suddenly seems wizened beyond her years. She picks up the virtual reality headset and starts fighting the monster again. In the middle of it, she realizes the way to beat the game and the monster. She uses the fish tank, breaks it, and electrocutes the monster. In order to make sure he stays dead, she plunges a sword into its chest.
Later, we see a jaded, world-weary Laura who not only knows her worth but is aware of how to ask for it. She turns in the final version of the game to Faye and demands the bonus and other conditions using a backup disk as leverage. She used all these things to her advantage and later rebranded Clayton Software as Wheeler Software and became the new CEO.
Why should you watch How to Make a Monster (2001)?
How to make a monster is a great technological horror film, in my opinion. It has all the gore, all the fear of technology that has been brilliantly portrayed, and all the beauty of a 2000s film. It is iconic, nostalgic, and far ahead of its time, all at the same time. While it has a lower camera quality as it is a low budget film and the initial parts of the movie seem pretty slow and tedious, the build-up is significant.
It somehow manages to keep you hooked throughout. The scenes where the suit keeps using the bodies to revamp itself are wonderfully gore-y. Despite being low budget, the film doesn’t really disappoint. It is a fun watch, especially on days when you crave something with good amounts of gore and 2000s nostalgia. The best part about this film is that it is available on YouTube, making it easily accessible.