YOUR MONSTER Trailer (2024) Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey

YOUR MONSTER Trailer (2024) Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey

YOUR MONSTER Trailer (2024) Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Romance Movie
© 2024 - Vertical

"I'm a mess!" "No you're not!" Ahaha listen to the monster! Vertical has unveiled the official trailer for an original horror comedy musical called Your Monster, created by the filmmaker Caroline Lindy. This first premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year in the Midnight section, earning some rave reviews (I saw it there - it's a very good time!). After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actor Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster living in her closet. A romantic-comedy-horror film about falling in love with your inner rage. The monster is an actual giant, hairy, big guy kind of like a live-action Beast from Beauty and the Beast. But he's also just a metaphor for her "inner rage" – or maybe he really is real? Watch the film and find out. Your Monster stars Melissa Barrera as Laura, with Tommy Dewey as the beast, and Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster, Meghann Fahy, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ike Ufomadu, and Lana Young. This trailer hides the whole musical side of it - there's a few clever songs. The monster's makeup & FX are terrific, though. This entire dark comedy is worth a watch.

Here's the main official trailer (+ poster) for Caroline Lindy's film Your Monster, direct from YouTube:

Your Monster Poster

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 decides to retreat into 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 develop. But out of these gut-wrenching life changes emerges a big, hairy 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. Your Monster is written and directed by up-and-coming American filmmaker Caroline Lindy, making her feature directorial debut after many shorts previously. Produced by Kira Carstensen, Melanie Donkers, Kayla Foster, Caroline Lindy, Shannon Reilly. This first premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in the Midnight section earlier this year. Vertical debuts Lindy's Your Monster movie in select US theaters starting October 25th, 2024 this fall. Any good?
Melissa Barrera is falling for a monster of a man — literally.

The “Abigail” and former “Scream” star leads the Sundance-selected feature “Your Monster,” which was written and directed by Caroline Lindy and based on her 2020 short film of the same name. Barrera plays Lindy’s stand-in Laura, an actress who is reeling after being dumped. She realizes that her rage actually manifested into a new beau, who just so happens to be a monster creature.

The official synopsis reads: “‘Your Monster’ tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco (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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Meghann Fahy, Kayla Foster, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ike Ufomadu, and Lana Young also star.

The IndieWire review even credited Barrera and Dewey’s onscreen chemistry for “selling” to odd dynamic between the two lead characters.

“The monster is, of course, a manifestation of Laura’s rage, but he’s also — and you’re either gonna vibe with this or not, but we will say that Barrera and Dewey’s chemistry goes a long way to selling it — kind of a cutie?” the review reads. “As the rest of Laura’s life continues to curdle, Monster’s affection for her and his very genuine understanding of her character can’t help but warm her up, and the pair eventually fall into something like a rom-com. With teeth. (And musical numbers!).”

Barrera told IndieWire that her eclectic career, ranging from musicals like “In the Heights” to horror films, is all in an effort to embody relatable characters.

“As an actor, it really stretches you and takes you to crazy places that you don’t get to do in other genres, so it’s very appealing to me in that sense,” Barrera said of starring in horror features. “There’s something very seductive about the darkness in humans, and horror very adeptly explores all of that. I’ve gotten the joy and the good fortune of playing very interesting characters with lots of darkness within, and it’s just fun. It’s challenging, but it’s fun to get an audience to root for someone that is not all good.”

She continued, “I find it way more interesting to play a character that feels irredeemable on paper or like, ‘I hate her,’ and my challenge is, how do I make the audience still fall in love with her, not necessarily [make her] likable, because I feel like some of these characters that I’ve played are not necessarily likable, but they’re real. There’s something about them that you’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’m like that,’ or ‘My sister’s like that,’ or ‘My mother’s like that,’ just ‘I know someone that is like that.’ That immediately will make you establish a connection, even if what they’re doing is questionable.”

“Your Monster” premieres October 25 in theaters. Check out the trailer below.
Continuing her reign as one of our top modern day scream queens, Melissa Barrera returns to the genre that we know and love her in - but with a little bit of a twist. The official trailer for the Scream actress’s upcoming film, Your Monster, has arrived, and it’s everything we could want from a spooky movie with a heavy helping of rom-com as the cherry on top. We at Collider had the exclusive drop for the movie’s first teaser over the summer, but now we have a better idea of how Caroline Lindy’s feature-length debut will pan out on the big screen.

In Your Monster, Barrera stars as Laura Franco, an aspiring actress who is having an absolutely gut-wrenching year that’s made all the worse after her boyfriend ends their relationship. Struggling to cope with the life that now lies in front of her, Laura can’t help but simply go through the motions day in and day out. But, just when she thought her world was already flipped upside down, things get even more out of control when Laura discovers a charming monster living inside of her closet. With the monster’s help, Laura gets back on her feet and allows herself to feel all the hard feelings and rage that have been piling up for years.

Starring opposite Barrera as the charismatic yet hairy monster is The Mindy Project and Casual’s Tommy Dewey. The leading pair is joined by Edmund Donovan (Civil War), Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus), Kayla Foster (The Deuce), Lana Young (The Resident), Taylor Trensch (Evil) and more. Along with directing Your Monster, the movie was also penned by Lindy, who based parts of it on her own life. The project has been a labor of love for the filmmaker, who watched it grow from a short to a feature-length production over the last five years.

‘Your Monster’ Will Blend Horror with a Comedic Love Story
The world could use a little more horror-romantic-comedy hybrid features like Your Monster, which takes two genres that, on paper, sound like they wouldn’t mesh, and give audiences something they’ve never seen before. During a chat with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff at the film’s premiere earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, Barrera gave viewers a peek into the production process and how she and Dewey approached their one-on-one scenes.

“When we were shooting, especially when Tommy and I were doing the cutesy stuff together, it became a thing of, we wanted Caroline to come and be very excited and dance and yell. She would get on her knees and she would fall on the ground when it was the right amount of mushy, lovey deliciousness that she loves. So that was our goal in all of the things.”

Check out the debut trailer for Your Monster below and see it in theaters on October 25.

Your Monster Prerelease Film Still
Your Monster
Romance
Comedy
Horror
After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster living in her closet. A romantic-comedy-horror film about falling in love with your inner rage.

Release Date
January 18, 2024
Director
Caroline Lindy
Cast
Melissa Barrera , tommy dewey , Edmund Donovan , Brandon Victor Dixon
Runtime
98 minutes
Main Genre
Romance
Writers
Caroline Lindy
Melissa Barrera (Scream, Abigail) and Tommy Dewey (Casual, Wyrm) are an adorable odd couple in the new trailer for Your Monster, the upcoming horror-comedy love story from writer/director Caroline Lindy.

Hitting theaters on October 25 via Vertical, Your Monster is based on Lindy's 2019 short of the same name, and follows:

[…] tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco (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 (Dewey) with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart and fall in love with her inner rage.

Alongside Barrera and Dewey, the film stars Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster, Meghann Fahy, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ike Ufomadu and Lana Young.

Following its premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Your Monster played at Sundance London, where it won Audience Favorite Award.

Today's new trailer is, quite frankly, adorable and pulls the heart strings in all the right ways – Barrera and Dewey look like a perfect modern day Beauty and the Beast, and there's some stylish nods to classic horror including an already-iconic Bride of Frankenstein look.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Barrera revealed that it was her on-screen chemistry with Dewey that took the Your Monster in a more romantic direction that originally intended:

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Originally, in the script, it was more of a banter-y comedy with this monster as a guide. But once we got on set, the chemistry was so good with a lot of the improv that it became a lot more romantic and Beauty and the Beast as we were shooting. That’s one of my favorite Disney princesses, so I love that that’s what it’s reminding people of.

Don't miss Your Monster in theaters on October 25.

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Melissa Barrera stars in a reimagining of the Beauty and the Beast story, and the brand new official trailer for Your Monster reveals a Halloween setting for the romantic comedy movie, coming to theaters this October.

Here’s the full synopsis: 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.

In today’s new trailer, Barrera’s character asks the Monster to a Halloween party, where she is later seen wearing a Bride of Frankenstein costume (pictured above).

The film is written and Directed by Caroline Lindy, starring Melissa Barrera (Scream, Scream VI, Abigail), Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster, Meghann Fahy, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ike Ufomadu, and Lana Young.

Your Monster arrives in theaters on October 25.

You can watch the new official trailer and see the new poster below.
Watch the fun trailer for horror comedy Your Monster, starring Melissa Barrera, out Oct. 25th.
Your Monster offers a quirky twist on Beauty and the Beast with a playful horror comedy vibe.
The film features a stellar cast, including Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, and Lana Young.
Your Monster delivers laughs and scares, perfect for the spooky season this October.

Your Monster is a new horror comedy starring Melissa Barrera in a fun twist on the Beauty and the Beast tale. It also stars Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster, Meghann Fahy, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ike Ufomadu, and Lana Young. It's written and directed by Caroline Lindy. Barrera is such a wonderful performer; she is the big draw here, but the story has a certain charm in this trailer. Consider me impressed. Hey, I am here for any film starring a hairy beast.

Your Monster Trailer: Beauty & The Beast Horror Comedy Out Oct. 25th
Credit Vertical
Your Monster Synopsis
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. Written and Directed by Caroline Lindy. Starring Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster, Meghann Fahy, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ike Ufomadu, and Lana Young.

I think I am here for this one. I love my horror to unnerve me as much as any monster kid, but sometimes I also like the zany and wacky horror that seems like we don't get as often anymore. Even though I didn't care for Lisa Frankenstein earlier this year, I did laugh at it and respect what they were going for. Hell, one of my favorite movies growing up was My Boyfriend's Back. I think a horror comedy like this is exactly what this spooky season needs.

Your Monster will open in theaters on October 25th.
Following its world premiere at Sundance, the horror rom-com Your Monster, starring Melissa Barrera (In the Heights) and Tommy Dewey (The Mindy Project), has landed at Vertical for North American distribution.

Marking the feature directorial debut of Caroline Lindy, who adapted the script from her own short film, Your Monster also stars Edmund Donovan (Gossip Girl), Kayla Foster (Call Jane) and Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus). No word yet on a release date.

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The pic tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco (Barrera), who is dumped by her longtime boyfriend (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 (Dewey) with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart and fall in love with her inner rage.

“We were captivated by Caroline’s film at Sundance and thrilled it has made a home here at Vertical,” Vertical Partner Peter Jarowey said. “Marking her directorial feature debut, she has created a fantastic, fresh, genre-defying film that perfectly balances the mix of comedy, romance and horror topped off with a dash of musical theater that will captivate and delight audiences later this year.”

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Stated Lindy: “I’m beyond thrilled to collaborate with Vertical on the release of Your Monster. Their strategies and commitment to innovative distribution aligns perfectly with our movie, and their passion for the film and desire to support my first feature means the world to me. The Sundance crowds were incredible, and I’m excited that more audiences will soon have a chance to see Your Monster in theaters and beyond.”

The film is produced by Kayla Foster, Caroline Lindy, Kira Carstensen, Melanie Donkers and Shannon Reilly, and executive produced by Bob Potter, Dewey, Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountford. Jackson Sinder, Jack Taylor Cox, and Alex Peace-Power were co-producers.

Jarowey and SVP Acquisitions Tony Piantedosi negotiated the deal for Vertical, with WME Independent negotiating on behalf of the production.

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Sundance
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Your Monster
If Ann Landers had it right, and hanging on to resentment amounts to letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head, then “Your Monster” is what happens when you kick open the door and let those feelings run amok. Drawing from personal experience, writer-director Caroline Lindy delivers a clumsy metaphor of a movie, in which a promising young actor named Laura Franco (“In the Heights” star Melissa Barrera) has her Broadway dreams derailed by a cancer diagnosis, only to discover a ferocious inner strength, courtesy of the beastly creature she finds hanging around her childhood home.

In what amounts to a heavy-handed empowerment tale, the monster in question (Tommy Dewey, made up to suggest a cross between a goat-bearded New York hipster and the leonine lothario Ron Perlman played in CBS’ late-’80s series “Beauty and the Beast”) is at first a surly roommate, later a potential love interest and ultimately a manifestation of Laura’s long-suppressed sense of rage. The symbolism isn’t exactly subtle as Laura learns to break free of her polite good-girl upbringing and embrace those roiling emotions.

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Set in the histrionic world of musical theater, “Your Monster” is no conventional horror offering, any more than conceptually similar “Colossal” and “A Monster Calls” were before it. Things eventually get bloody, but only just enough to support Sundance’s decision to book Lindy’s genre-bending backstage dramedy as a midnight movie. At various points, Lindy’s script overtly identifies the kind of cinematic impact she’s aiming to achieve, as when Laura watches Stanley Donen’s “Royal Wedding,” tearing up as she always does at the end of such movies. And yet, Lindy’s project doesn’t register as a new-classic romance so much as a score-settling grudge match.

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Like her heartbroken protagonist, Lindy was dumped by an insensitive boyfriend just as she was being treated for a suspicious tumor. It takes a special kind of jerk to abandon someone in such a situation, and yet, Barrera’s pouty and privileged take on the character gives audiences reason to think her deadbeat ex, Jacob (Edmund Donovan), had the right idea. We can all agree how lousy Laura’s breakup must have felt, but it’s going to take more than tragedy to make us care about this entitled drama queen.

A flashback shows the moment when Jacob promised Laura the lead role in the musical she helped him develop, “The House of Good Women.” But what evidence does Lindy give that her leading lady belongs on Broadway? If Barrera’s cringe-worthy performance is meant to be any indication of Laura’s talent, the character doesn’t belong anywhere near a professional stage.

Lindy has the lazy tendency of resorting to hammy montages (featuring more sweater changes than a “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” marathon) in places where a specific, well-written scene would have revealed far more about the character. And so we get Laura bingeing on pastries and bawling her eyes out when she comes home from the hospital, or cutesy clips of her and the monster fighting over the thermostat during the short time they agree to cohabitate. Lindy treats “Your Monster” like a high-concept sitcom premise, but fails to deliver the laughs such an approach requires.

Against her better judgment — but at the monster’s encouragement — Laura psyches herself into attending the tryouts for Jacob’s musical. Her audition is a disaster, which makes sense, considering that her ex sits there looking pathetic, a popular star (Meghann Fahy) is positioned to steal her part, and one of the decision-makers distractedly chooses this moment to eat his lunch. Barrera can sing, but she can’t juggle, which is a problem in a role that requires a more versatile performer.

Still, whether out of sympathy or obligation, Jacob offers to make Laura the understudy, which introduces the near certainty that the star will break a leg or something, therefore paving the way for Laura to shine. Unique as the premise may sound, “Your Monster” proves frustratingly obvious as its furious heroine works up the nerve to unleash her id (which is a lot less satisfying when presented as a grouchy companion than if she had a full transformation, à la “Cat People” or “Ginger Snaps”).

At one point, Laura’s invited to a masquerade party with Jacob and the cast, using the Halloween holiday as the perfect opportunity to drag her monster out of the house — under the pretext that he’s in costume. I suspect that young audiences may find Dewey’s adorable-ogre shtick more amusing than I did, as the hirsute creature (who’s presumably been pent up in Laura’s house/subconscious till now) surprises with his millennial lingo and awareness of neighborhood hot spots.

The stock joke with imaginary-friend movies is that these characters are disconnected and out of touch with the modern world, whereas the monster under Laura’s bed expresses himself like a teenage girl — even more than best (and only) friend Mazie (Kayla Foster), who brings an irreverent Kate Berlant-like energy to the only other character who seems to care about Laura. Mopey to a fault, with a missed opportunity for an ending, “Your Monster” amounts to an intermittently amusing, grubby-looking pity party. Laura can cry if she wants to, but you won’t.

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Melissa Barrera, Sundance Film Festival
‘Your Monster’ Review: A Miscast Melissa Barrera Bonds With the Beast Under Her Bed
Reviewed at WME screening room, Los Angeles, Jan. 12, 2024. In Sundance Film Festival (Midnight). Running time: 102 MIN.
Production: A Bombo presentation of a Merman Films production. (World sales: WME Independent, Los Angeles.) Producers: Kayla Foster, Caroline Lindy, Shannon Reilly, Melanie Donkers, Kira Carstensen. Executive producers: Bob Potter, Tommy Dewey, Sharon Horgan, Clelia Mountford. Co-producers: Jackson Sinder, Jack Taylor Cox, Alex Peace-Power.
Crew: Director, writer: Caroline Lindy. Camera: Will Stone. Editors: Dashya Broadway, Jon Higgins. Music: Tim Williams. Songs: The Lazours.
With: Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, Meghann Fahy, Kayla Foster.