Morningside, New Jersey, is a sleepy little town where nothing big ever
happens. Sure, it could have been a minor sensation when the local high
school's history teacher Mark (Nicholas Brendon) is caught and hauled in
for trying to buy half a pound of marihuana - but he bought it for his
fire Abby (Amber Chaney), who's dying from cancer and he needed it to make
the pain go away. So his best friend Sheriff Haulk (Robert Pralgo) and
Klara (Tiffany Shepis), the deputy who arrested him, come to an agreement
to just let him off ... and even give him back his grass. ... but then a
local petty criminal (Jayson Palmer) is found dead, murdered, and while
nobody is really going to miss him, the circumstances of his murder - he
was pretty much battered to death, and some kind of symbol is found next
to him - are more than a little mysterious and creepy. More killings
follow, all committed by a hooded figure with a weird mask and a uniquely
shaped mace, and the killer seems to zero in on Clyde (Mike Stanley), a
former high school bully turned drug pusher, and another of theose guys
nobody will really miss should he die ... but then, Mark all of a sudden
finds himself in the crosshairs of the killer. Something's wrong here,
dead wrong ... One can't help but notice that after a enjoyably
nasty opening, Attack of the Morningside Monster starts out a bit
on the slow side, taking quite a bit of time to introduce its main cast
rather than just push the story forward - which is only half as bad as it
sounds as the movie is populated by a bunch of well rounded-out characters
embodied by a first rate ensemble cast ... and once action and suspense
set in, they hardly ever let up again ... and ultimately the story veers
off into delightfully unexpected territory, too. Plus, the film's rather
matter-of-factly, in a good way old-fashioned directorial effort fits the
narrative to a T. To put it simply, in all it's a really cool movie!
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