I recently watched and reviewed Dangerous Men and I basically called in the most incompetently made movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s still manages to be a lot of fun and really enjoyable. Field Freak, also known as The Monster Outside in some parts of the world, is technically (I think) a better made movie than Dangerous Men but it is without question the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. I am not exaggerating when I say that either. This movie is bad, bad, bad and it is not fun in the slightest bit.
A family relocates to a secluded in the cabin in the woods so the father can finish writing his book. Or maybe he’s writing a screenplay. I can’t remember but the point is he’s writing and his hope is that he can get it done quicker now that he’ll no longer have the distractions of city life.
At first the move seems perfect. The cabin is really nice and their cabin is located in a beautiful part of the woods. Their small son is not so happy at first, having to leave his friends and all, but eventually even he comes around and things are looking up.
Things take a change when something begins to harass the family. While home alone one day the mother sees a Big Foot-like creature outside her window. When her husband comes home she tells him what he saw. He doesn’t believe her at first but eventually he too sees the creature and they decide to fight back.
I knew virtually nothing about Field Freak when I put it on. I didn’t even know Field Freak was the original title. Perhaps had I been aware of the movie’s dumb title I would have been better prepared to watch this garbage. I have the German Blu-ray in which the title is The Monster Outside, a pretty decent title. Naturally that’s the only bit of information on this release in English. So I had this along with the artwork (see below) to go by before watching the movie.
I expected a low budget, but serious attempt at a Big Foot creature feature. Oh how I was wrong.
Field Freak of The Monster Outside or whatever the hell you want to call it is in no way a serious attempt at a monster movie. The real attempt here is to deliver a comedy in the guise of a monster movie. That would be fine if this were funny. It is not.
The monster’s costume is horrendous. It’s clearly a guy in a suit and not a very good one. It looks like a Halloween costume of a Big Foot that you’d get at Big Lots. Now if this movie were actually funny I’d totally be down with this costume, but I once again repeat that it is not.
The problem isn’t just that the movie fails to be funny (or scary) either. The real issue is that it fails to be funny while thinking it’s hilarious. There wasn’t a single moment in this movie in which I laughed. Not even a chuckle. In fact I don’t think I even cracked a smile. How does that happen? I can find humor in most things but not this. This was an absolute chore. Willingly watching Field Freak is the most horrible form of self torture you’ll ever find.
I don’t write scathing reviews often. I always try to find something positive in every movie I watch. It’s hard as hell to make a movie so I always want to give the benefit of the doubt when possible. But this movie man, this movie just feels lazy to me. It feels like a rough draft of an idea that was haphazardly put together.
It’s certainly possible that the filmmaker has a totally different sense of humor than I. Maybe to him this movie is hilarious. If so, that’s fine. Filmmakers should be doing what they love. But I struggle to think this is a best effort and because of that I can’t recommend this movie to anyone.
If you are still interested (you really shouldn’t be interested) in the movie for some strange reason, the German Blu-ray from Tiberius Films is fine. It is a region B Blu and there’s no special features but the picture quality and all that jazz is fine, I guess. It’s tough to even say the picture quality is good when the movie is so bad, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the picture quality so I guess that’s a positive. Oh and the artwork, while extremely misleading (classic VHS move), is pretty good.
Field Freak (The Monster Outside) is available on Blu-ray from Germany’s Tiberius Films.
