Cloverfield Review

        It’s been a while since I’ve done a found footage movie. If you recall, I did a review on The Blair Witch Project three years ago. It came out in 1999 along with the last film that I talked about. Those two changed the horror genre with Blair Witch reintroducing the found footage for a new audience. It only made sense to bring that style back in the 2000s, but this time add in a monster running rampant in New York City.   

1. Monster on the Loose

        This is the first time that I talk about a Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams film. Maybe some time in the future I’ll talk about their respective films. In the meantime, Abrams owned the 2000s. He was well known for creating the hit TV shows Alias and Lost, the latter being a monumental hit and considered one of the best mystery television shows to air. He’s mostly known as a producer but has dipped his toes into directing. The idea for this movie came from him when he saw Godzilla and wondered why the U.S. never had a monster. 

        One could say that King Kong is an American monster, albeit not destructive but misunderstand since he’s a giant ape. Or if you want to look elsewhere in the 1950s with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The only reason why we don’t have a monster is that we never were on the receiving end of any catastrophe. With Godzilla being the representation of the Japanese fear of the atomic bomb. While the other examples is just bringing something unknown or tampering with nature. 

        It only made sense that we have a monster that is reflective of the times where it’s set in. And that’s the main idea with this one. We follow the characters as they prepare a going away party for one of their friends. One may say that the human element is boring since we only really want to see the monster. Well, my retort to that is that if we only focus on the monster then it’ll be boring to watch. What makes the ensuing action or horror is seeing everyone being active and reactive to try to escape where the monster is at. 

        I might as well talk about the characters since they have names and we follow them for an hour and 40 minutes. We see that Rob is having the going away party and he hands over the camera to his friend Hud. If there’s one thing where video games have taught me is that Hud as an acronym meaning “Heads Up Display”. So, it makes sense that he holds the camera and captures footage of the carnage. It’s the two of them and Rob’s brother’s fiancée and Hud’s crush Marlena as we see them before and in the ensuing attack.

        I love how the tension slowly builds when everyone sees what’s going on. It’s small like an earthquake and then the big explosion within the city. Punctuating it is seeing the Statue of Liberty’s head flying and crashing near the camera. Reminiscent and paying tribute to the poster for Escape from New York. Since we have a monster storyline that is the framing, the human story involves the quartet trying to find and rescue Rob’s girlfriend from the rubble. While that’s nice and dandy, we see that the creature isn’t the only thing that the people have to face. 

        I love how the action is punctuated to be somewhat like Saving Private Ryan when the action is literally in front of the characters. Especially when they’re caught in a crossfire as the National Guard try to kill the monster but to no avail. All of it has that grounded look since we see the aftereffects of the monster stomping through and the military’s missiles damaging the buildings. I think it’s an aesthetic that I’ve noticed in Matt Reeves’ work. His work on the Planet of the Apes franchise and The Batman has that grounded look that tries to make it realistic. 

        The film is grounded, and I love how we slowly get the little glimpses of the monster. It’s now known as Clover, but to me it’s ingenious to slowly reveal the monster. Jaws is always going to be the example when to build the tension of the threat. The fear being that since we’re confined to seeing what Hud is capturing and not knowing when Clover is going to pop out. Making matters worse is that it carries a parasite that can cause people to explode. And we see it as one of the members in the group gets bitten and inevitably dies. 

        If there’s one redeeming aspect that I have with the film is that the monster is seemingly indestructible. Like we never see a glimpse of it having any visible damage other than just react to the gunfire and missile barrages. And I think what’s more frightening is that the monster is an infant. The director revealed that tidbit after the fact and it makes for a possibility that all hope is gone when a grown size creature shows up. In one way, I think it keeps the tradition of found footage films where the people we’ve been tracking has died. 

2. Legacy

        I remember the marketing for the film so vividly that I think it’s one of the last film’s to practically use the internet as a marketing tool. Even in the trailers, they never revealed the title of the movie but only showed when it was going to come out. It was Cloverfield and Paramount’s other horror film Paranormal Activity that brought back the found footage sub-genre back into the mainstream at that time. While Paranormal Activity has created a franchise, and ultimately fell into the same trappings of lower quality sequels, Cloverfield took a different turn for a franchise. 

        The ensuing sequels for Cloverfield were nothing like the first one. Well, you can’t really call them a sequel since there’s no continuing thread from the first entry. You can say that the follow ups have Cloverfield in its name but use it as a way to describe the setting or action. The follow up 10 Cloverfield Lane from what I’ve read is pretty good. There were talks of a sequel to this one, but the release of Pacific Rim and 2014’s Godzilla made it not possible due to Abrams saying that the monster element has already been played out. 

3. Overall

        Cloverfield is one of the hidden gems of the 2000s and one of the best monster films of all time.