Mail Order Monster | Film Review

Mail Order Monster is a story that takes a look at the grieving process with imagination and fun sci-fi elements. The title of the film is incredibly misleading until you understand the context within the film because at first glance, it sounds like it could be scary; it’s actually a family film. 

Sam Pepper (Madison Horcher) is a smart comic nerd who lost her mother in a car accident, with Sam in the backseat. Since then, her father, Roy (Josh Hopkins), has been taking care of them both, and has gotten into a new relationship with a friendly and loving woman, Sydney (Charisma Carpenter). Sam also seemingly lost an old friend to the popularity woes of school friendships and is consistently bullied while no teacher or administrator attempts to reprimand those who lord over her, but offers her a pity solution. It’s a very strange writing choice which I still don’t understand what purpose it served.

While trying to deal with the still relevant grief of the loss of her mom and the bullying at school, Sydney gets Sam a rare comic book, showing the audience she’s not the monster of this story. Sam immediately goes through it as soon as she gets home and finds a promotion to have your own “mail order monster” sent to your home. Because of course, what struggling tween doesn’t want their own personal robot, right?

Sam orders it and also puts it together. Still not sure how she’s that crafty with a blow torch or what parent allows their kid access to one unsupervised, but hey, to each their own. You need imagination for a story like this.

Sam’s robot comes to life and takes on a surprising form – which I will leave for you to experience. The story progresses with the father-daughter/new girlfriend dichotomy. What I enjoyed most is that Sydney isn’t portrayed as the villain, which is often not the case because we usually want to side with the child, and therefore neglect how both the step-parent and widowed parent feels.

The script has some very peculiar choices, particularly in how moderately ignorant Roy is as a father. I’m not saying he doesn’t care about his daughter, he absolutely does, but he doesn’t seem to act like he’s taking care of such a young child who is clearly going through a traumatic situation, and rather treats her like an equal to him. This isn’t parenting; this is room-mating. Sydney, at times, seems to be the more concerned and responsible parent of the two, although she never attempts to take the mother’s place. It would be much more understanding if we had some visual past experience where Roy’s wife took care of everything so he was in the dark on parenting, but we don’t exactly get that.

There’s also a very unique style of on-screen storytelling at play here, and it’s one I think director Paulina Lagudi handled exceptionally well. Being that comics are pivotal to our main character’s personality, our character’s history is told in a comic book fashion instead of a stereotypical flashback. This is a really fun and inviting way to engage your audience, which also attempts a new way of storytelling not handled in this way before – that I’ve seen or heard of, anyhow.

The performances were fairly average, with the best actually coming from the youngest’s portrayal of a girl distraught by her mother’s passing and the initial outcry of a new relationship felt very authentic. She allowed me to insert myself into that position and understand why she reacted the way she did. Child actors are rarely ever surprising, but Horcher truly holds the film together.

Now, this robot called ‘MOM’ – yes, for Mail Order Monster – had a Power Rangers feel to it, a little bit cheesy but still adorable. It had a cute wobble like a penguin, but still made you want to hang out with it for a day. This isn’t Transformers by any means, but they implemented creative aspects to it and I truly respect them for making the attempt and making it work the way they did.

For the most part, I really enjoyed Mail Order Monster. They allowed the robot to be an aspect rather than a focus, and truly honed in on the experience of loss for both a child and a spouse/remaining parent. We even saw the love and attention a step-parent has for a child that isn’t their own, which is very rarely captured appropriately. Mail Order Monster had creativity, engaging and emotional story-lines, and decent performances. With a bit of sharpening on the characters, this could truly be a Grade A movie. It’s worthy of a viewing with family, especially if yours is experiencing this.

Also, why is Sam’s school’s window always unlocked at all hours? What kind of security do we have here? Maybe they need a MOM of their own.