Mail Order Monster is a 2018 children’s fantasy film about a young girl who seeks help and guidance from a robot monster to cope with the bullies at school and her father’s new girlfriend.
Making a quality children’s movie is probably much harder than it seems, balancing impactful themes into accessible stories that don’t pander to developing minds while still delivering something meaningful. Naturally, not many studios get it right, failing to connect or worse using their influence to market products. Either way, there are filmmakers out there who certainly recognize the power a good children’s film can have and endeavor to inspire imaginations, even if not all succeed. Enter writer/director Paulina Lagudi‘s latest little fantasy Mail Order Monster, a genuinely creative effort that surely has its bumps but manages to work as intended, making it an easy pick for family movie night.
Sam Pepper (Madison Horcher) is a young, precocious girl who hasn’t quite caught up physically with her schoolmates, making her an easy target from the ‘mean girls’, led by PJ (Emma Rayne Lyle), who relentlessly harrasses the much smaller Sam. Worse, Sam lives in the shadow of a car accident that killed her mother three years earlier, leaving her hard-working father Roy (Josh Hopkins) to raise her. Thing is, he’s now moved on and in love with kind-hearted Sydney (Charisma Carpenter), hoping to rebuild his family, though Sam is a little reluctant, not wanting to ‘replace’ her mother. Meanwhile, in the back of a comic book, Sam spies an ad for a mail order monster and sends it in, getting in return a box of parts that sort of comes together as a robot. However, it’s not until a freak surge of electricity flows into its innards and gives it ‘life’, calling itself MOM do things begin to change. Now, can she keep MOM a secret and use it to help her deal with all the drama?
There are a whole string of standards Mail Order Monster makes sure to check off its list, including a lost parent, bullies, and most obviously, an exotic new friend that redefines everything. However, as trope-ish as these things are, at least there is some connectivity to it, with plenty of children able to identify and Lagudi effectively working to wring dry as much as she can from her own spin on the theme. Fortunately, she makes the familiar compelling, with an earnest story and better yet, genuinely memorable turns from her cast, most especially Horcher who is nothing short of a wonder.
Playing at a fairly even emotional level, never really swinging too deeply into the depths it might have and thus perhaps missing a chance for greater resonance, Lagudi opts to instead better develop three important relationships. And it’s how Sam deals with her father, Sydney, and PJ that helps to separate this from others, even if colored broadly, a concession to the target audience.
Interestingly, the film’s weakest link is MOM itself, a character that doesn’t quite fulfill its potential, more of a site-gag that morphs into darkness in a surprisingly violent end. Cleverly, Lagudi, cuts to comic book style panel animation when the story gets too heavy, respecting young eyes watching, though I question the reason for the late action while understanding the intent. Either way, acknowledging that I am not the audience this story is meant for, I wonder how this all might have played out minus the monster. Or at least lending it a more ambiguous nature.
Mail Order Monster is a safe title for parents and should inspire their kids to get creative but more so, ask some important questions. Recommended.