Paramount Pictures
Forget 2008’s Cloverfield. Forget the monsters, big and small. Forget the found footage format. Forget Beth and Rob. Forget the final walkie-talkie transmission warning that the creature is still alive. Forget Cloverfield.
Fans of Matt Reeves’ monster hit are hoping this is a sequel, and the filmmakers themselves are calling this a “spiritual successor,” but the truth is far simpler — 10 Cloverfield Lane is its own creature and creation, a tightly-wound, achingly-suspenseful, terrifically-acted thriller that keeps viewers on unsteady ground until the end credits start to roll.
When we first meet Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) she’s frantically packing a suitcase with clothes and belongings before walking out the door and leaving her keys and engagement ring behind. Driving increasingly remote roads, she hesitates over answering her distraught fiance’s call when an accident sends her car tumbling into a ditch. She awakes to an injured leg and a chain securing her to a bare wall, and soon she meets the man responsible. Howard (John Goodman) is a self-described “sensible guy,” and he needs her to know three things. An attack of some kind has left the world outside this underground bunker saturated with poison gas, he’s responsible for saving her life, and as he says plainly right before her face drains of hope and vigor, “No one is looking for you.”
It’s something of a trial and error-type situation, but Michelle soon gets the lay of the strictly dictated land. She’s not allowed to leave — it’s for her own safety, but the multiple padlocks on the bunker’s hatches, as well as the gun on Howard’s belt, make it a difficult prospect regardless — but it should only take a year or two for the deadly gas above to dissipate. Her host is gregarious in his excitement for this new arrangement, but his ability to turn his mood on a dime when crossed or upset is absolutely terrifying. Curiosity, fear, and the details of Howard’s story dance recklessly in Michelle’s head, and the presence of a third person in the bunker — Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who vouches for Howard and claims to have seen a giant flash, “like something out of the bible,” himself — does little to calm her nerves.
Again, forget Cloverfield. This is a movie that deserves to be taken entirely on its own merits. Director Dan Trachtenberg‘s feature debut, from a script by Josh Campbell & Matthew Stuecken (with additional work by Damien Chazelle), is a volatile ball of compressed wonder shimmering with possibility and tension.
The majority of the film takes place in these cramped quarters, and Trachtenberg makes sure we feel the lack of space. An air vent sequence in particular might just trigger claustrophobic feelings you never knew you had. We grow to understand the geography along with Michelle, but just as important and well-defined is the film’s attention to sound design as both the familiar and the foreign reverberate between the walls.
Scenes of plausible serenity give way to suspense and terror, sometimes slowly, excruciatingly, and sometimes faster than we’re prepared for — blame Goodman for most of the latter instances — and the entirety holds viewers in a grip that only continues to tighten. Michelle is our guide through this nightmare, and we share her certainty only to question that resolve as new information comes to light.
The cast is small, but the talent they display is immense. Gallagher Jr.’s simple country boy is a character rather than a stereotype, and he does great work massaging our allegiance. Winstead remains front and center throughout and keeps viewers effortlessly rapt with the emotional being behind this smart, crafty, and pro-active heroine. She sells Michelle’s humanity as well as her ability giving us no choice but to support and cheer her every move. And then there’s Goodman. Sweet jesus, there’s Goodman. He disarms with a smile and some dance moves, but there’s a barely concealed and coiled threat in his every word and glance. Something as simple as Howard telling Michelle to use a coaster is laced with a frightening amount of latent rage, and he instantly becomes one of the most terrifying characters to hit screens in years.
10 Cloverfield Lane‘s final stretch stumbles slightly — not in the direction it takes but with some of the details therein — but it doesn’t derail the intelligence or excitement of what came before. It’s like a 100 minute-long episode of The Twilight Zone hitting the sweet spots that Rod Serling charted so well nearly half a century ago, and in a just world what it accomplishes on a modest budget will become a Holy Grail for filmmakers with ideas and ambitions towards smart genre efforts interested in more than simple CG spectacle. Just imagine the possibilities.
The Upside: Highly suspenseful; beautifully acted; continually surprising; immensely entertaining
The Downside: Final fifteen minutes are suspect
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