Sketch

What’s it about?

A fantasy dark comedy for families about what happens when the monsters from a grieving girl’s drawings come to life and threaten their town. She, her brother and their frenemy must team up to stop the chaos.

The facts

• Directed by Seth Worley
• Starring Tony Hale (Arrested Development) and D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place)
• English language
• Runtime: 92 minutes

Why did it get this rating?

This film was cross-rated by the Film and Video Labelling Body. You can find out more about cross-rating here.

Violence

The main child character draws violent fantasy scenes, where monsters are attacking and killing each other. They are drawn in crayon and pencil, and do not look realistic on the page.

However, she verbally describes the violence she imagines in her head: for example, pulling out someone’s eyeballs; stabbing someone in the stomach. The adults hearing this clearly find it disturbing. The child is grieving, and it is understood her interest in violence is connected to this.

Child characters talk about how they can defeat the monsters, and their ideas include laser guns.

Some scenes may scare young children

The monsters, when they come to life, are sinister, threatening, and scary. Some are small, spider-like eyeballs. Another is a huge unseeing toothy maw that tries to eat the children. Another has a long tongue that tries to strangle a character.

The child characters sometimes run and hide from the monsters and sometimes fight them. As the monsters are defeated, some of them have limbs chopped off or are burnt.

There is frequent use of tense, foreboding music, which increases the sense of danger and impending horror in the film.

There is mild blood shown, with grazes on a hand from a fall.

A school bus crashes into a field of corn due to being chased off the road by a monster. There are no graphic injuries, though the driver is knocked out and the children are trapped in the bus.

Coarse language

Characters, including children, use occasional coarse language, including "b*st*rd", "dumb*ss", "hell", "jerk", "poop", "butt" and "pee".

Grief

The central characters are grieving the death of their mother, which happened before the timeline of the movie. They joke about being “mother orphans” with their father. The way they deal with their grief is central to the plot. This may be difficult for some viewers.

When content stays with you

We all have our boundaries, and it’s completely okay if something you’ve watched is weighing on your mind. If certain content lingers with you, consider having a chat with friends or whānau to debrief about what you’ve just seen. But if you’re still feeling affected, please reach out to any of the following helplines for support.

• 1737
• Safe to talk
• Lifeline
• Youthline

Further information

• Why are ratings and content warnings important for me and my whānau?
• Talking with your tamariki about content that doesn’t feel right | Blog | Classification Office