There is a tradition of film-making going back to Apocalypse Now which draws on the critical legacy of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (albeit quite uncritically). Utilizing an adventure tale set in a site of colonial intervention in order to promote a cynical point of view stemming from a nightmarish encounter with barbarism is a classic method of generating a piece of social commentary without engaging in overtly political themes. Monsters: Dark Continent, heir to the critically-significant 2010 masterpiece Monsters directed by Gareth Edwards, aspires to construct just such a work of art. Though it succeeds in its project to create a work of art in the aforementioned tradition, it does not quite succeed in the project to create a good film.