Monster Fest 2025 Film Review - Shell
Images courtesy of Rialto Distribution.
Max Minghella’s Shell wants to be a lot of things: a modern body horror, a satire of Hollywood’s obsession with youth, and a campy creature feature. Regrettably, it has the misfortune of coming on the heels of last year’s The Substance, with the two even premiering together at Cannes.
Elisabeth Moss plays Samantha Lake, a washed-up sitcom star who turns to a biotech wellness company promising eternal youth via a mysterious crustacean-based treatment. Moss, ever the committed performer, especially given that she acted in the role whilst heavily pregnant, plays it straight - too straight. Her dramatic intensity clashes with the film’s occasional flirtations with camp, leaving the audience to view the film through a protagonist who seems to be from a different movie. It’s not her fault; the script gives her little room to lean into the absurdity, and Minghella’s direction is largely flaccid, doing the bare minimum with the screenplay.
Kate Hudson, on the other hand, gets it. As Zoe Shannon, the glossy CEO of the beauty empire, she slinks through scenes with just enough venom to suggest she knows exactly how this concept should be brought to life - with big budget B-movie flair. Her performance is the closest Shell gets to the acidic send-up it clearly wants to be, highlighting that with just a few tweaks, this could have been just unique enough to warrant discussing alongside its contemporaries, rather than being pitted against them.
Visually, Minghella gestures toward retro sci-fi aesthetics - there’s a monster reveal that’s pure ‘50s creature feature cheese - but the film never fully commits. The body horror is tame, the creature reveal is shrouded in darkness rather than revelling in rubbery goodness, and any would-be thematic bite is dulled by a lack of conviction. Where The Substance went full throttle into viscera, delivering its metaphor with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, Shell tiptoes around its own identity, circling the drain while squandering its goofy ideas. It’s a shame, because the premise practically begs for grotesque excess.
The film’s biggest misstep seems to be just that, its identity crisis. Through a series of confounding creative decisions, Shell decries superficiality, yet refuses to look anything less than polished. In the end, it’s not without some genre thrills for those who go in with lowered expectations, and Hudson’s performance is a minor triumph, but the film’s refusal to fully embrace its monstrous potential leaves it stranded in the shallow end of the tide pool. Reject humanity, become crab.
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Shell screened as part of Monster Fest 2025, and is showing in select cinemas now. For more info, click here.