Paula Hammond - Features EditorMonolith is a film that delights and surprises in equal measure. This low-fi, slow burn thriller is part science fiction, part social commentary, with just the right amount of bumps and jumps to keep the audience engaged.
Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise) stars as a disgraced journalist who tries to salvage her career by turning to investigative podcasting. While trying to get to the bottom of a strange artefact that may be linked to an alien conspiracy, she begins to uncover the truth and lies at the heart of her own history.
Released to huge acclaim on the festival circuit, Monolith is the feature debut from Matt Velsey, who clearly has a great future ahead of him — if he can avoid being sucked dry by the Hollywood machine. Because, while Hollywood is great at what it does, increasingly what it does, is nothing to get excited about. Gone are the days of big release, big budget films that genuinely offer something new. Increasingly, that’s left to indie directors, whose small, film festival releases remind us that good films are still out there. And, while star names and merchandising can — and do — sell a film, nothing works quite as well as a good story, told well. And that’s exactly what Monolith is.
So far, Velsey’s little gem has played SXSW, the Adelaide Film Festival, and London’s FrightFest. It comes to streaming platforms from 26th February — catch it if you can. Because Monolith’s spiderish tale of self-deceit, terror, and conspiracy is just the tonic to make you fall back in love with film.
