Compassion at War With Survival

Read Time:5 Minute, 53 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Monsters Within
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Genre: Drama, Thriller
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director(s): Devin Montgomery
Writer(s): Devin Montgomery
Cast: Devin Montgomery, Kendall Cavener, Charles “Skeeta” Jenkins, Daniella Montgomery, Samuel French, Brandon Stewart, Katy Hayes
Where to Watch: on digital platforms, October 3, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: MONSTERS WITHIN wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s a character-driven drama with thriller elements about a veteran, Luke Wolf, who returns home and discovers that the hardest battles aren’t fought overseas, but inside the mind and within the relationships he’s neglected. The film’s core is the bond between Luke and his sister, Elle—played by writer-director-star Devin Montgomery and his real-life sister, Daniella Montgomery—which lends the story an authenticity that is palpable in the quiet moments. That choice grounds the film’s broader themes and keeps the focus where it belongs: on care, responsibility, and the complex path from avoidance to accountability.

As a narrative, this is a story about an internal siege. Luke arrives with a backpack full of denial and a habit of running. The town hasn’t changed much, but he has, and the film leans into that friction. When he tries to step back into a routine—checking in on Elle, testing old friendships, avoiding hard conversations—the “monsters” materialize as both real threats and the consequences of choices he’s been postponing. The duality is the film’s best idea: even when external antagonists circle, the sharpest cuts come from the way trauma reshapes memory, patience, and the ability to give or accept help.

Devin Montgomery carries the lead with a performance that favors restraint—shoulders tight, jaw set, eyes scanning a fraction longer than necessary. It reads as someone holding the walls up from the inside. Opposite him, Daniella Montgomery brings warmth and a lived-in ease that nudges the film toward honesty. Their scenes together land because they aren’t straining for effect; they feel like two people who know the same history and are trying to protect it in different ways. That dynamic provides the movie’s pulse and its most affecting moments.

The supporting ensemble adds texture. Charles “Skeeta” Jenkins, as Sheriff Duhart, calibrates firm authority with a neighborly understanding; you believe he’s seen more than he says, and you understand why his patience has limits. Kendall Cavener’s Lily functions as a tether to decency, reminding Luke—and the audience—that grace isn’t a finite resource, but it does require reciprocity. The film also bears the weight of being the final starring role of Samuel French, whose presence brings an intensity that sharpens the edges of the conflict; his scenes linger because he plays a man written in hard lines but shaded with recognizable hurt.

Two strong elements define the film’s identity. First, it is committed to portraying a sibling relationship with care and sensitivity. Elle isn’t written as a device or a symbol; she’s the heart of the story, with agency and opinions that shape Luke’s choices. Second, its insistence that healing isn’t cinematic—no single speech cures the habit of flight, and apologies only matter if behavior changes. When the movie stays close to those truths, it works.

Where MONSTERS WITHIN struggles is in balancing its grounded family drama with its genre tension; the thriller frame, however, promises escalating stakes. Still, the middle act spends a bit too long circling familiar beats: warnings that go unheeded, confrontations that reset back to the status quo, and a few detours that reiterate what we already know about Luke rather than revealing something new. At 100 minutes, you can feel the weight of repetition; a tighter cut, trimming redundant scenes, would maintain pressure and give the third act more impact.

Independent productions often rely on a blend of trained and less-experienced actors; this one is no exception, and the seams show in a few exchanges that fall flat or come across as overly emphatic. The strongest scenes are built around silence and small gestures—hands hovering, glances that dodge, the way a room goes quiet when certain names are said. Leaning into that nonverbal fluency plays to the film’s strengths and aligns with its central idea: most monsters are seen in how people behave when they think no one is watching.

Thematically, the film explores familiar yet potent ideas: survivor’s guilt, moral injury, and the fear that loving someone means you might fail them. It’s careful about the way it depicts Elle—positioning her not as Luke’s burden but as his reason to resist the worst version of himself. That’s a crucial distinction and one of the film’s best decisions. When the climax asks Luke to choose between old instincts and earned responsibility, the choice feels motivated by the relationship we’ve watched develop rather than by plot necessity.

MONSTERS WITHIN earns respect for what it prioritizes: empathy over spectacle and relationships over gimmicks. It’s a film that believes showing up every day is both the simplest and hardest form of courage, and it treats that belief seriously. Reflects the balance accurately—solid foundation, genuine emotion, and standout turns (especially from Daniella Montgomery and Samuel French), alongside pacing drag and uneven tension that keep it from breaking through to something great. With a leaner second act and a clearer line between the inner and outer “monsters,” this could have punched well above its weight. As is, it’s a sincere, often affecting first feature that signals a filmmaker most at home when the room is quiet and the stakes are personal.

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