Review: Little Monsters – “Ukulele-soundtracked blood-spattered ray of feel-good sunshine”

Written and directed by Australian Abe Forsythe (Down Under), Little Monsters stars Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther), Alexander England (Alien: Covenant) and Josh Gad (Frozen), and is released in the UK on the 15th of November.

When slacker rocker Dave (England) gets dumped he moves in with his sister and her five-year-old son Felix. The broken-hearted metalhead soon finds a new romantic obsession in the form of Felix’s kindergarten teacher Miss Caroline (Nyong’o).

In an attempt to get into her good books, Dave volunteers to help out on a class expedition to a petting zoo THAT IS ACROSS THE STREET FROM A US ARMY BASE where a zombie outbreak quickly occurs sending hoards of the undead crossing the road to munch on Dave, Miss Caroline, the kids and visiting kids TV star Mr Giggles (Josh Gad).

With Dave not quite there yet on his mission to better himself and become a hero, and Giggles turning into a sweary drunken mess, it is up to Lupita Nyong’o’s adorable Miss Caroline — armed with a big heart and a small guitar — to sing and dance herself and her class out of the clutches of a zombie outbreak.

The laughs come thick and fast and often at the expense of small children, which makes them even funnier, but a couple of times the humour dies when aimed at a particularly-uncool-to-joke-about-no-matter-what target that may fly in Australia but thuds to the ground here.

Luckily, this does not happen often and most of the time the bumbling waster Dave, foulmouthed jerk Mr Giggles and straight man Miss Caroline are a combination that again and again create comedy gold.

The happy-go-lucky energy is extremely infectious and you’ll be laughing and smiling so much that you will almost forget about the actual zombies. They never really pose much of a threat though. The focus isn’t on thrills and scares but fun and games so even though the make-up and effects are suitably rotten and wonderful, the deadheads are predominantly punchlines.

With the world the way it is, anything designed to create joy should be celebrated and Little Monsters is a zombie movie that is actually impossible to not completely fall in love with. This ukulele-soundtracked blood-spattered ray of feel-good sunshine is a future cult favourite full of quotable lines, big laughs and easy smiles.

Little Monsters is released in the UK and Ireland on the 15th of November.