Melissa Barrera has shared the somewhat bizarre reaction her friend had to her new horror comedy Your Monster, and it involves a confession more people can probably relate to than they'd care to admit publicly...
"My friend told me that when she saw the movie, it was like she lived out her fantasy of fucking [adult] Simba from The Lion King," the former Scream star tells Total Film in our final issue, which is out on Thursday, October 10 and features Gladiator 2 on the cover. "[That] was her first crush. [Monster's design] was like the human version of that lion, where during Hakuna Matata, all of a sudden, he turns sexy. That was funny but very accurate."
Also starring The White Lotus's Meghann Fahy, Kayla Foster, Edmund Donovan, and Tommy Dewey as the titular Monster, the quirky romance flick follows Laura (Barrera), an aspiring actress who's Broadway dreams are put on hold when she's diagnosed with cancer. While navigating the treatment (and a bad break-up), Laura moves back in with her parents and discovers that the closet in her childhood bedroom has been commandeered by a terrifying, but surprisingly charming, beast.
Caroline Lindy, who was behind the 2019 short film in which its based, directs.
"It's based on when I was diagnosed with cancer and [got] broken up with," Lindy explains to Teasers. "This is my way of catharsis: making this movie [about] how I wish that someone had told me to get in touch with your monster. I want it to feel like we're pumping up this character. Where we believe she can do it, she can…"
Your Monster, which has already proven a hit at multiple film festivals worldwide and earned an impressive 83% Rotten Tomatoes score, releases on October 25 in the US, and December 6 in the UK. You can read more about it, and a whole lot else besides, in the final issue of Total Film when it hits shelves and digital newsstands on Thursday, October 10.
Check out the covers below:
Subscribers have the exclusive text-free cover on the way to them right now, with the issue then hitting shops and digital newsstands on Thursday October 10.