When all is said and done The Green Monster suffers from falling into the same traps a lot of indie genre flicks do. It's not that the smaller budget drags things down it's more to do with a scattershot script that tries too hard to throw as much into 78 minutes as possible with the passage of time sped-up so much that things just plow by in the span of what's supposed to be a couple of days. The feel of the movie is more amateurish than anything and inexperience on the behalf of the filmmakers tends to shine through.

That's really too bad because they basically blow their cinematic "load", in what amounts to the most tasteless opening scene I can certainly think of, as a teenage girl stumbles into a convenience store bathroom to give birth only to strangle the newborn with the umbilical cord, cut said cord with a knife, and toss it into a dumpster out back. Such a repugnant moment could have set the tone for the entire thing but nothing that follows even comes remotely close to shocking the viewer speechless (like I was), making me question why they had to bother with it in the first place.

From there we're introduced to the psychotic redneck couple of Gerald (Edward X. Young) and Molly (Colleen Cohan) who we first see prepping a meal fit for cannibals during a credits sequence that's washed-out look does a decent job of resembling the grindhouse sleaze directors Nolan Ball and Bryan Roberts so badly desire to emulate. We also learn that they happen to be the owners of the store, dubbed "Gerald's Hungry Shack", that our pregnant lass did her makeshift abortion in as well as the fact they use the green dumpster out back to dump the bodies of their victims in - hence the title.

Looks like Gerald's place isn't exactly in the best part of town but that doesn't stop three high school girls from taking a trip out there as the snooty Bree (Beatrice Strobl) wants to buy some special homemade chocolates, which she then proceeds to gobble down in orgasmic ecstasy as they contain - wait for it - human blood! Not too long afterwards Bree's family is murdered by her cocaine craving former boyfriend while she looks on more concerned with eating her addictive treats. After being beaten-up by her murderous ex, she ends up back at Gerald's where she becomes the couple's latest victim.

Bree's sudden disappearance concerns her friend Leah (Bethany Taylor) who befriends the new-in-town Tyler (Nathaniel Sylva) as they go on a mission to find out what happened to her best pal and his missing sister - who also came into contact with our variety store nutters. The remainder of The Green Monster consists of our two heroes falling for each other, our psycho pair getting up to some mild mayhem (Molly even gets her fingers shot-off in a robbery and later serves customers with a nasty looking bloody bandaged hand), their secret being uncovered, and various lame twists in the last ten minutes.

Even though its quite obvious we're not to take this very seriously, and that the people behind it wanted to pay homage films such as Motel Hell and its "cannibalistic redneck" ilk, I just had a hard time slogging my way through this. This is no fault of Young or Cohan who seem to be relishing the chance to go as over-the-top as they can but even they can't save us from the aforementioned muddled script, the fact that every other cast member is an obvious non-actor (especially Sylva who is so wooden he might as well be Pinnochio), or general disinterest. The makers have wedged a whole lot of nonsense into a brief running time bookmarking it with moderately well done gore moments but forgotten to make any of it engaging. (Chris Hartley, 6/7/10)

Directed By: Nolan Ball, Bryan Roberts.
Written By: Trevor Wright.

Starring: Kachina Dechert, Beatrice Strobl, Bethany Taylor, Phoebe French.