’10 Cloverfield Lane’. 7.5 out of Ten. Director: Dan Trachtenberg Cast: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr. Rated: PG-13 (strong language, violence, adult themes) Running time: 103 min. 

Do not read this review. Seriously, the less you know going into ’10 Cloverfield Lane’ the better. The J.J. Abrams-produced and Dan Trachtenberg-directed thriller, ’10 Cloverfield Lane’, an unrelenting thrill ride from start to finish, is best experienced by entering it knowing as little as possible. 

Now, nearly a decade after the 2008 hit “Cloverfield,” which followed a group of friends documenting a monster attack that wiped out New York City, we have ’10 Cloverfield Lane’. Is this a direct sequel to the first ‘Cloverfield’ film? A loosely-connected prequel, à la ‘Prometheus’? Or is this shameless marketing rejiggery exploiting the ‘Cloverfield’ ‘brand’? Abrams has described it as a “blood relative” which… isn’t really an answer, is it? So, what exactly is IT? 

Minor Spoilers Ahead. Serious, if you want to go into this Tabula Rasa…turn back now. 

’10 Cloverfield Lane’, begins with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) waking up from a car crash. She’s in a survival bunker with an injured leg and pants less. She’s absolutely terrified and confused. She soon discovers she’s the “guest” of one Howard Stambler (John Goodman). He ominously explains that he’s saved her life. There was an “attack”, he says. Outside this bunker everybody is dead and the air is poison. 

Then introduces her to another occupant of the bunker, Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.). Emmett says he fought his way into the bunker after having seen an explosion “like something you read in the Bible”. When Michelle makes a run for escape, she’s met with a bloodied woman outside, also desperate to get in. Remembering the title, we begin to think that Howard — aptly described by Emmett as “a black belt in conspiracy theory” — maybe isn’t as crazy as he seems.

So then what are alternatives? Well, that’s the film, right? Is there danger and certain death on the outside, as Howard insists? Or is Howard the true danger? Michelle simply doesn’t have a lot of options. The unorthodox family makes peace for a while, but it’s impossible for so many doubts to simmer for so long without them boiling over. And then? Then we stop our discussion of the story and talk about Trachtenberg’s ratcheting of tension, of putting us in the same claustrophobic world Michelle finds herself in. When a game of Monopoly with a possible psycho starts to look like a welcome form of entertainment, you know you are in a bad place. 

Trachtenberg, a first-time feature film director who came to Hollywood’s attention in 2011 when he created a short film based on the popular video game ‘Portal’, is patient building this world, and the actors do a good job inhabiting it. The director works the genre, or the genre within the genre, beautifully for most of the running time, his clean, precise direction keeping the eye trained on key movements and the heart racing almost all the way through. Winstead is a terrific actress, and she makes Michelle’s desperation and inventiveness believable. Goodman is never better than when playing a nut, and while we aren’t sure if that’s what he’s doing here, the possibility makes for an intriguing portrayal. 

’10 Cloverfield Lane’ is a tightly constructed piece of entertainment. Trachtenberg knows which buttons to push, bringing us a picture that gleefully places us on edge and confidently nudges us to its conclusion, however satisfactory that may be. In terms of overall structure, the film finds itself slightly lacking as the answers roll around. In order to tiptoe around plot developments, Some eyebrows may be raised, some won’t be. Regardless, at the very least it doesn’t take away from what we’ve been through. Whether it adds up to a decent payoff or not will be up to the individual. 

IMO, the best part…If ’10 Cloverfield Lane’ ends up being a hit (relative to budget and expectations of course), it will be an unthinkable situation where a film was announced just eight weeks prior to release and successfully advertised absent both the year-long run up to release and absent much knowledge of what the film is about/what happens during its 103-minute running time. If this works, we could well see more of these smaller-budget, somewhat mysterious “surprise movies” from those with the clout to make it happen.

The teaser for ’10 Cloverfield Lane’ starts out like any slice of life film: a family playing with the old jukebox, hanging out with board games, putting together puzzles and well, playing at making house. Because it’s all a nasty facade. You realize this is not a beautiful house, they are in a fallout shelter. And this is not someone’s beautiful wife, she is a prisoner. And at her first chance to escape, well. The beauty of anything with the name ‘Cloverfield’ in it is we don’t know what happens next. But, we can speculate.

What is ‘Cloverfield’?

In January 2008, when ‘Cloverfield’ hit the the big screen, the found footage monster horror movie immediately created a massive buzz and was well received by the critics. The original idea for the movie came from Abrams himself who went on to produce it. Starring newcomers and made with a budget of $25 million, the film went on to make over $170 million. Ever since, there’s been talk about a sequel, and now we have another film with “Cloverfield” in the title.

But as the initial excitement over the new trailer wore off, many started to question the origins and the intent of the project itself. It is still unclear if the upcoming movie is even a “proper” sequel to ‘Cloverfield.’ Everyone’s surprise about the fact that Abrams even managed to work on the project (keep in mind the new ‘Star Wars’ and numerous other projects he’s been working on), and at the same time managed to keep it under wraps, soon raised red flags. As the buzz around the trailer gained some momentum on the social media, Abrams issued a statement to Collider:

“The idea came up a long time ago during production. We wanted to make it a blood relative of Cloverfield.”

Wait, ‘Blood Relative’? so it’s not a sequel, it’s part of something else…maybe an anthology?!? 

I predict a two-hour screencap of the girl’s phone as she texts/skypes/facetimes/snapchats/fakehollywoodamalgamofsocialapps with her family and friends, launches the camera and holds the phone up to the basement window to see what’s making that scary noise, takes selfies, etc. while weird things happen outside and upstairs.

Or a Monster dies, it’s blood infects people and turns them into ‘Cloverfield’ zombies who ride the ‘Cloverfield’ ticks into Battle against the Night’s Watch …ERRRR, I mean the Army.

We humans are just on the slow lane heading to extinction.

All kidding aside, What I gathered is that the Lovecraftian monsters are still out there and that the survivalist (Goodman) finds this girl and brings her down there before it gets real bad, but he knows what’s coming (Cthulhu or whatever) and is terrified of her getting out. I assume it will end with her getting out and immediately being eaten? As predictable as that sounds, I’m still on board, partly to see if that’s really what’s gonna happen or if the hostage in a survivalist bunker is actually only a small part of the over all story. I want to see strange alien Fringe’esque madness in IMAX.

Then again, maybe it’s just a ‘Voltron’ movie.

-Dagobot



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The trailer for “10 Cloverfield Lane” hit the web today and fans of “Cloverfield” rejoiced with elated confusion. Is this the sequel to the 2008 film that we didn’t know we needed?? 

Filmed under the working title “Valencia” and directed by Dan Trachtenberg (who did this awesome “Portal: No Escape” short), this new project has been kept hush hush in typical J.J. Abrams fashion. The trailer shows John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr. living in what looks to be an underground bunker. It starts with a small family living together and enjoying each other’s company, but things take a turn when Winstead appears to be the victim of a kidnapping and tries to escape. She looks on in horror out the bunker window, only to tease us more about what exactly is happening outside. Could it be New York after the events of the first “Cloverfield” movie? 

Abrams has said in an interview about the movie, “we wanted to make it a blood relative of Cloverfield,” which has people thinking this new project could be more of an anthology piece rather than a direct sequel. The trailer shows the movie isn’t filmed found-footage style, so for “10 Cloverfield Lane” to be a cousin/anthology piece makes sense.

If I can impart any advice when it comes to the release of this trailer, start doing research on the movie now. Part of the “Cloverfield” appeal was all the viral information that accompanied the film. Once you learn more about the mythos and backstory not necessarily revealed in the plot, the more you will enjoy watching the mystery unfold. Check out the trailer below and get to researching!