Ok. So it's not gonna win many awards for acting .......saying that the main characters are great.....just a few supporting actors (namely the father!) make this feel more like a Media Collage level project.

The old school practical effects were great to see and you can just tell it was a real labour of love for all involved making the various creatures and gore effects. Low low budget but with lots of heart. Plenty of Evil Dead influence throughout but with a more British sense of humour that works in most places. Under a more experienced director the scenes could have had the tension that it was lacking, but that will come in time. A fun way to spend 80mins...... Switch off the brain and enjoy the blood. One good thing is that they didn't go into the realm of shoddy after effects cgi (except the explosion) like a lot of budget films do and kept it practical with inventive monster designs (except the Djinn which was Poundland Halloween level. Ha .

Well done to all involved. Teens will love it. Pretty girls, blood and........well more blood. p.s...... I was actually left wanting to see further adventures of the female trio of monster slayers......which is rare.

I must admit that I had somewhat expected or hoped for more than that "Book of Monsters" turned out to be. I was initially enticed by the movie's cover/poster, and thought this might actually be a movie worth watching. I had that particular vibe to it, that it would be an indie movie of sorts that would sneak under the radar and turn out to be rather enjoyable.

Truth of the matter was that the movie was mediocre at best. It should be said that writer Paul Butler definitely tried and put together a fair enough storyline. But director Stewart Sparke just didn't really manage to bring the movie to life in a particular fulfilling manner for me. And the entire movie just felt half-hearted; like a low budget movie with big ambitions.

The story was fairly simple, to the point of being too simple actually, because the audience are never really fully brought into the concept and what is really going on, and why the monsters come to life - except because it being for Sophie's 18th birthday. And as such, then it felt like a crucial and vital part of the movie had been left out.

The characters in the movie were fairly flaccid and most of them lacked personality all together, which meant that you didn't really care if people were mauled, killed or whatever. It was just another cardboard cutout person in the gallery.

The creatures were fairly okay, at least in concept idea. But they definitely bore witness to this not being a massive million dollar budget movie. And again that added to the whole low budget feel that permeated the movie.

All in all fairness, then this felt like a well-accomplished low budget movie. And it definitely felt like the people were having fun making the movie. But when you sit down to watch a proper movie and be properly entertained, you might just find yourself having drawn the short end of the stick here. My rating of "Book of Monsters" is a very mediocre five out of ten stars. The movie came in under my radar and I happened to come across it by sheer random luck. The movie failed to impress me and didn't leave any lasting impression, so it will vanish into oblivion as quietly as it evaded me initially.

To celebrate her 18th birthday, pretty gay schoolgirl Sophie (Lyndsey Craine) throws a house party, where she hopes to get closer to classmate Jess (Rose Muirhead). Her plans for romance are ruined, however, when the party is crashed by monsters who need her blood to complete a ritual that will give life to all the malevolent creatures depicted in an ancient book.

As a Brit horror fan, I'm a keen supporter of independent UK scary movies, but it's tough going at times: the gems are often few and far between, resulting in a lot of disappointment. Book of Monsters, for example, boasts a fun concept with plenty of promise, but it is seriously hampered by weak acting (Nicholas Vince puts in a particularly bad performance, showing why he's best remembered for simply chattering: his delivery of his dialogue is awkward and unconvincing), plot progression that is achieved by the way of too much clumsy exposition, and comedy that frequently falls flat. I wanted to like it, but I didn't.

The party massacre is a lot of fun, full of excessive cheesy splatter, with bodies torn apart and liberal spraying of blood, and if the film had continued in this OTT vein, it might have been a mindlessly enjoyable way to pass the time; unfortunately, the splatter soon dries up, leaving us with the bad acting and the clunky script, made worse by Stewart Sparke's tongue-in-cheek approach that rarely hits the mark (the gags involving the male stripper are especially cringeworthy, and an attack by evil gnomes is hampered by crap effects).

On a slightly more positive note, the main monsters are admirably unconventional in design, although the lack of a decent budget means that they're not very animated and consequently less frightening than they otherwise might have been.

A post credits scene sets up things for a sequel, Sophie and her surviving pals dedicating their lives to hunting and killing monsters. Let's hope they get a stronger script, a bigger budget and a few acting lessons in the interim.