Get to Know Creech in the High-Octane Unleaded ‘Monster Trucks’ Trailer

Paramount’s upcoming kids’ flick Monster Trucks sounds like the sort of project that was conceived as a goofy pun and then reverse-engineered from there. You see, we colloquially refer to motor vehicles outfitted with oversize suspension and larger tires as “monster trucks” due to their large size and monstrous appetite for smaller, weaker trucks. But this film imagines a fanciful scenario in which an odd beast makes a home inside the engine of a truck, which the creature then controls using its slimy tentacles — quite literally, a monster truck! Everybody still with us? Good.

Both the first trailer and new clip revealed today foretell a silly little film, from the groaner humor (monster selfies!) to the gross-yet-adorable design of the organism dubbed Creech. It’s high school senior Tripp (MacGyver’s Lucas Till, a 26-year-old man) that first discovers Creech while tinkering with the ol’ rust bucket, and the two of them become fast friends after an initial bonding period filled mostly with burping. Tripp dreams of a life beyond his small town and dead-end future, and with Creech supercharging his trusty truck, he may have just found it. But some taser-gun-wielding thugs stand in the way of Tripp and Creech’s destiny (though the trailer offers zero explanation whatsoever as to who these men are why they’re so intent on tasering and 18-year-old).

Monster Trucks roars into theaters on January 13, at which point it will provide parents still fatigued from the post-holiday scramble with an hour-and-a-half of peace as they continue to keep their kids occupied. At least, that’s Paramount’s best-case scenario. Worst-case? They flush over $100 million down the crapper all on an idea that dreamed up by a 4-year-old. Yet again, The Onion scoops real life.