Writer/director Caroline Lindy’s Your Monster has gone through a number of evolutions since she first conjured the concept. The story began as a feature before she trimmed it down to a short, and even then, there were possibilities that it would have been adapted into a series for the short-lived platform Quibi, with it ultimately landing in theaters as a genre-bending love story. Lindy recently recalled the evolution of that original story and how her original idea pivoted in various ways on its path to becoming the feature film that audiences have been checking out. Your Monster is now playing in theaters.
“Originally, the project was a feature film, and then I found out about the grant program through Women in Film, so I had to somehow chop it down to a 15-minute project, 15-minute script, but that was actually extremely helpful because it makes you laser in on what the most important elements of the story [are], the most exciting aspects of it,” Lindy expressed to ComicBook of the project’s development. “And then when I had to expand it back to a feature, the proof of concept is really helpful for getting my production company, my partners on board. Because I had the short film and producers attached, it helped to get the financing, ultimately, for the feature film.”
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She continued, “So it’s a long road. It’s a long journey. For a moment, it was going to be a Quibi show, so you have to be extremely patient. It takes many, many years to get an idea like this off the ground, especially one that’s as wacky as this film. I think the hardest thing was trying to remain hopeful that it was going to come to fruition, even though it took so, so long.”
Your Monster tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera), who is dumped by her longtime boyfriend (Edmund Donovan) while recovering from surgery and retreats to her childhood home to recover. With her future looking bleak, insult is added to injury when Laura discovers her ex is staging a musical that she helped him develop. But out of these gut-wrenching life changes emerges a monster (Tommy Dewey) with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart, and fall in love with her inner rage.
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While the film manages to embrace a variety of tones throughout its run time, it doesn’t pull its punches with its finale, a decision that Lindy always knew she would arrive at.
“This movie is a monster film, so I felt like I had to, even though this is not straight horror, it’s more spooky, cozy, or lighthearted, horror painted with a lighter brushstroke, I felt like I still needed to pay homage to some of my favorite monster movies,” the filmmaker detailed. “I felt like this is a movie about a woman’s rage and a woman finding her voice and in an unapologetic, proud way. She’s a musical theater actress, so I felt like it had to have a really big, bold, grand finale that was going to be fun and ridiculous but truthful to the way I felt when I, finally, was proud to share my monster with the world.”
She added, “I love grand finales. Usually in a Broadway show, there’s a big grand finale, and so I felt like it was appropriate for the character. I felt like it was appropriate for the movie, but ultimately I thought it was the most fun way to end the film and I will always pick the most fun ending over anything else.”
Your Monster is now playing in theaters.
