In 1994, writer/director George Huang turned his experience working as an executive assistant in Hollywood into the excellent dark comedy Swimming With Sharks, and it seemed like he was well on his way to bigger and better things. Unfortunately, his teen comedy follow-up, Trojan War, went straight to video, and it was all he could do to get a gig remaking a 1958 AIP flick for Showtime’s short-lived Creature Features film series.

Assigned with How to Make a Monster, he completely jettisoned the original’s plot, instead telling the tale of a group of video game programmers who end up being stalked by their own virtual monster.

Deliberately cartoony, the movie makes no attempt at all to depict the authentic realities of game production, which wouldn’t be a problem if Huang hadn’t decided to rip himself off and use the film to re-tell the same story he told in his first and much, much, much better picture. By the time Monster ends with a newly jaded Clea DuVall (in the Frank Whaley role) schooling a new intern in the cold, cruel realities of the world, it becomes agonizingly clear that by his third film, Huang had already shot his entire creative wad, leaving him with nothing else to say.

That said, the movie isn’t a complete waste of time, assuming you’re a fan of B-movie bombshell Julie Strain, who gifts the picture with a completely gratuitous nude scene (that you can probably find somewhere online). —Allan Mott

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