10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Review

10 Cloverfield Lane Review

I don’t know why, but as a head’s up, I do not feel the same way as the majority of critics on this movie. It’s really difficult to discuss it in-depth without getting into spoilers, given how secretive the marketing has been. It’s hard to believe we didn’t even know it was coming out until a couple months ago, but here it is. I’ll do my best to sum up my thoughts in a spoiler-free manner. 

Let me begin by clearing up some confusion about what this movie is, exactly. It is not a sequel to Cloverfield. Aside from a couple tiny easter eggs, this movie has nothing to do with the events of the 2008 film of almost the same title. I still stand by on saying 10 Cloverfield Lane is one of the dumbest titles I’ve heard in a long time. This movie should have stuck with its original title, “The Cellar”. Calling it 10 Cloverfield Lane is just a way of cashing in on the success of Cloverfield, and just one of many instances of misdirection that work to varying degrees.

I went into this movie not expecting a Cloverfield sequel. In fact, I didn’t expect it to have anything to do with it, but I’m sure many people will, and they will be disappointed. I was still disappointed, but not for reasons I anticipated. 

First, the positives. This movie has an excellent opening. I can’t really say why it’s so good without spoiling it, so I’ll leave it at that. The music and sound design is great. The acting from all three leads is also great. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays an intriguing main character who is smart, feisty, and tough. The other actor I’m not familiar with, and while he too gave a good performance, John Goodman is the stand-out. Despite having had many memorable roles in the past, I didn’t see him as John Goodman or any of those other characters, he embodied this off-kilter man who you know has a couple screws loose, but you don’t really know if he’s fully crazy or if he actually is saving them from something sinister outside. There are a couple scenes where he really brings it, and is pretty unsettling.  

The trailer sums up what the majority of this movie is about really well, without spoiling any major plot points. It is as straight forward as it looks: three people trapped in a bunker, because everyone outside is dead from a supposed air contamination, whether from nuclear bombs or extraterrestrials or something else, is not clear, until the end. The story is really straight-forward, and I appreciated the minimalist filmmaking at work. It reminded me of last year’s Ex Machina in a way, by having only three main characters that have no interaction with the outside world for the majority of the movie. 90 % of this movie is like a small, indie horror film. But this brings me to the negative things.

This movie is not scary. As I said, people expecting this to follow up the events Cloverfield will be disappointed. This is an almost completely self-contained movie, and while I liked the way it began and the initial set up of the characters in the bunker, after a while, it started to drag. I was waiting to get some kind of indication of what’s going on outside, and there are a few subtle hints, but nothing very substantial or satisfactory. There was a period where nothing really happened, they were just in the bunker, hanging out, talking. I found a lot of the lack of explanation more frustrating than intriguing. It seemed highly unrealistic that, as the trailer says, Mary Elizabeth Winstead was brought there by John Goodman, and she doesn’t question things enough. After a while she just starts going along with it, and it’s a little unclear how long they actually spend down there together. Something else I found frustrating was the constant attempts at misdirection. I can’t really go into detail on these points without spoiling, but it got tedious by the end and I wanted things to just be clearly laid out.

Now for the ending. Some might love the ending, others might despise it. I liked it, up to a point. One of the aspects of Cloverfield that intrigued audiences was the mystery of what exactly was attacking New York City. 10 Cloverfield Lane has a similar but bigger mystery: what the hell is outside the bunker? The reveal, I was hoping, would be worth the wait, but it just fell completely flat. I was completely disappointed, and honestly, if the ending had been some mind-blowing old school Shyamalan twist, I would’ve enjoyed this movie significantly more.

Another aspect of the movie that fell totally flat for me was the humour. There were many attempts at lightening the mood with jokes, hardly any of which were funny, but there’s one scene in particular where they’re playing a game together, and it’s supposed to be tension-filled then end in a funny “I didn’t see that coming!” kind of way, but it was completely predictable and just made me roll my eyes. Speaking of eye rolling, there were four other aspects of this otherwise realistic story that were really cheesy, one of which was the big reveal, that I just could not buy into.  

I feel much the same way about 10 Cloverfield Lane as I did about Cloverfield. It was a mixed bag, but overall, I didn’t really enjoy it. I didn’t hate watching it, but it’s not something I can see ever wanting to re-visit. However, I’m not straight-up saying you shouldn’t go see this movie. If you like mystery box-type sci-fi movies such as Super 8 (which this movie may or may not be connected to in some way), there’s a chance you’ll enjoy it. It’s reasonably suspenseful throughout, with a Twilight Zone feel, and unlike Cloverfield (sans 10 and Lane), it feels like a real movie with cinematic qualities instead of vomit-inducing shaky cam. As an effort from a first-time director, it’s acceptable. As a sci-fi horror mystery, it’s unremarkable. I can’t say if you’ll enjoy it or not based on your enjoyment or dislike of Cloverfield, but if you were curious about seeing it before reading this review, don’t let my less-than-enthused reaction stop you.

An American Werewolf in London (1981): Favourite Films Series

Welcome to a new C.C.C. feature: Favourite Films! 

This series is less a review series and more about just recalling some of my favourite movies of all-time; movies from all genres, decades, some that are well-known, others you might never have heard of (but should), and just why they are my favourites. 

Many film fans say they have no “favourite movie”, but just as many others can easily assemble a top ten list with reasons why each movie is in each slot. For me, I have a pretty solid top ten, and while I do have a default answer for my #1 favourite movie of all-time (stay tuned, I may discuss it!), I really could pick any of my top ten and call them my favourite. 

But I’m going beyond just my top ten. There’s no order in which I’m covering my favourites, it’s just a free-for-all! And the first one I’m covering, for no particular reason, is…

An American Werewolf in London (1981): Favourite Films Series 

I picked up a book many years ago called Scary Movies, which was just a thin, basic guide to, you guessed it, scary movies, and one of the movies it focused on was An American Werewolf in London. It showed an image of the iconic mid-transformation wolf face, and I instantly recognized it from a VHS cover I had seen in the video store many times. The face used to really creep me out—there was something in the expression that conveyed such inhuman pain, I couldn’t look at it. From what the book detailed, it sounded like an intriguing werewolf film, but it would be a couple more years before I’d get around to buying the blu ray and checking it out. 

When I first watched An American Werewolf in London, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. It started off a little slow, was kind of funny, kind of spooky, then the first werewolf attack comes, and it’s totally horrific and shocking. Then it starts getting fairly bizarre, and scarier, and funnier, and scarier yet, and funnier yet, and this just continues until the very end, and as the doo-wop version of “Blue Moon” played over the rolling credits, I was totally stupefied. 

I walked away, pondering what I had just seen. Was is a scary comedy or a funny horror movie? It was really quite disturbing and frightening, and yet, hilarious. I had never seen anything like it before, and still haven’t. An American Werewolf in London is, simply put, one of the greatest horror-comedy’s ever made.

I’ve already reviewed this movie in the past (link at the bottom of this page), but it was a very broad review and I didn’t get into too much detail. There will inevitably be some spoilers in the latter part of this article, so I recommend if you haven’t seen this movie and would like to, that you read my review and come back and read this after you’ve seen it. Seriously, just go watch it, the less you know the better. 

When it first came out in 1981, many people felt the same way I did at first. Like so many of the great movies of the past, An American Werewolf was ahead of its time, and it took some years before people recognized how ingenious it was. Every werewolf movie that has come since, owes something to it. 

The mark of a truly great horror movie is one that scares the pants off you when you first see it, and continues to be scary even upon repeat viewings. The mark of a truly great comedy is one that has you in stiches when you first see it, and continues to be funny even upon repeat viewings. An American Werewolf in London is, by those definitions, a truly great horror-comedy, because I’ve seen this movie numerous times, and it still makes me laugh and be unsettled at the same time, every time. Writer-director John Landis has said it’s not a comedy, it’s a horror movie that happens to be funny, and who could argue with the creator of this masterpiece? That’s right, I said it, An American Werewolf is a masterpiece. To me, it is the quintessential werewolf movie.

Horror movie purists would likely say the original 1941’s The Wolf Man is still the all-time greatest werewolf movie, and while I can totally understand that argument, to me, The Wolf Man hasn’t aged as well as An American Werewolf. John Landis himself said he had an issue with the way Lon Chaney Jr. just sat in a chair as he slowly became a wolf monster through lap dissolves; he always felt it should be a painful experience, and I always felt the same way, which is why the transformation in American Werewolf is still the best werewolf transformation in any movie ever. I’m not saying The Wolf Man isn’t a classic—it has, in its own right, stood the test of time—but American Werewolf has such convincing effects and is so well shot, even upon close inspection, I’ve found barely any flaws. 

Right out of the gate, Landis sets up viewers for an off-kilter experience. Eerie footage of the moors, coupled with Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Moon”, which is strangely upbeat and calming. The whole movie has this slightly distorted portrayal of the real world, but it’s so slight I couldn’t put my finger on it the first time I watched. It comes right down to the acting (all of the performances, by the way, are completely convincing and the characters feel real), with the way people say certain things. I guess it could be called acting nuances, but I’m probably not using that term correctly, so I’d just say it comes down to good acting. 

As I said, the werewolf transformation is the best ever, but beyond just that, all of the special effects makeup by Rick Baker is fantastic. The work on Jack’s (Griffin Dunne) decaying body alone is an extremely sophisticated series of prosthetics. It’s flawless, right down to the very smallest detail, like the tiny flap of skin that accidently came loose in the application process, but was left dangling because it looked purposefully disgusting. 

You could say the movie holds up as well as it does because of how good the effects hold up in particular, but it’s the effects combined with the well-written screenplay, that perfect combo that makes it so timeless. The conversations about the undead and werewolves and killing oneself are all spoken with increasing seriousness, but the audience buys right into them because this world that is uniquely John Landis’ is so believable in its depiction, you don’t question it. Landis said he wanted to take the mythical idea of werewolves and ground it in reality, and he did just that. 

I could go on about this movie for several more paragraphs, but I’ll wrap it up here. I love werewolf movies, and An American Werewolf in London is one of the major reasons why. It’s a tragic story, but it’s so funny and so well made, it’s a spectacle to behold. The characters are memorable and engaging, the situations are unique, the monster is menacing, and all the elements come together to make a one-of-a-kind horror movie experience everyone should have at least once, if not multiple times.

An American Werewolf in London Review: http://cccmovies.blogspot.ca/2014/10/an-american-werewolf-in-london-1981.html

Cloverfield (2008) Review

Cloverfield (2008) Review

With the new mysterious J.J Abram’s-produced 10 Cloverfield Lane coming out this week, I figured it was time to re-visit another mysterious Abram’s-produced movie with Cloverfield in the title, namely, Cloverfield! Since this movie came out just over eight years ago, expect spoilers throughout this review. 

I can’t remember when I first heard about Cloverfield coming out, precisely, but I remember anticipating it greatly thanks to the viral marketing campaign. It was like The Blair Witch Project, except it wasn’t marketed as “this is true footage” as much as it was just teased, very vaguely, but enough that it piqued many people’s interest. As a long-time fan of giant monster movies, I was sold on it just by knowing the very basic premise: a giant monster attacks New York City. 

J.J. Abrams said he wanted to create a giant monster for U.S. audiences that was the equivalent to Japan’s own Godzilla (I’m paraphrasing, of course, but that’s basically what he was getting at). Of course, that just made me even more excited. The trailers didn’t give anything away, and neither did the posters (the now-famous image of the mutilated statue of Liberty and the smoke rising from Manhattan in the background), but it was just enough to have me and my good friend excited enough to go see it opening night.

We got to the theater about 10 minutes before it was going to start. Somehow, some way, we got in line, got tickets, and got two fairly decent seats before the movie started. To this day, the opening night of Cloverfield is one of the busiest movie screenings I’ve ever attended. It was so full, people actually sat in the aisles on the stairs in groups (I’m not sure if people just chose to sit together on the stairs and there were actually many scattered free seats or if it was over 100 % full, but either way, it was packed). 

The monster that isn't the Cloverfield monster. Not sure what is is.

I left the theater feeling I little disappointed. Earlier that day, I had seen an alleged “leaked” picture of the Cloverfield monster (which has since been dubbed by fans as simply “Clover”), and I thought it looked pretty awesome and unique, but as I later discovered, the monster in the movie was completely different from the pic I’d seen. It’s not a bad design, but Clover definitely didn’t have the gravitas of Godzilla. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, all the build up to the movie was better than the actual movie.

I’ve re-watched Cloverfield several times since seeing it in theaters, and I seem to dislike it more every time I see it. A Godzilla or King Kong this is not. Taking all of the marketing and anticipation out of the equation, and evaluating just the movie, I take issue with several aspects of it, though I do still appreciate some parts of the film.

Let me begin with the most obvious and possibly most-decisive element of Cloverfield: the fact that it’s found footage. Generally speaking, I’m not big on found footage, but having said that, there are a few movies that were innovative in their use of it (The Blair Witch Project, Chronicle), and I initially loved the idea of a giant monster movie being filmed like it was a real event. I understand the criticisms that found footage can be too shaky and nauseating and hard to look at, and for me, Cloverfield is an example of this. It is, at times, so shaky, it’s virtually impossible to tell what is on screen, but most of it is shot comprehensively enough that I didn’t have a constant problem. 

I did a review for the found-footage horror movie The Bay (link below) and mentioned that movie sometimes looked too perfectly imperfect. What I meant by that was the footage was clearly doctored to appear damaged or distorted in some way to appear more realistic, but it came off as looking purposeful. I have to give props to Cloverfield for at least coming across as feeling real. The footage is shaky, yes, but it does add another element of realism. They just went too overboard with it at times.

The characters react in a very realistic way to the events that transpire, however, I never really sympathized with them. It starts out with friends at a party saying goodbye to their friend Rob who’s moving to Japan (Godzilla reference? I think so.) and Hud is given a camera and told to record everyone’s personalized goodbyes to him, but Hud’s more interested in hooking up with Marlena. The whole party scene goes on for what feels like quite a while, and none of the characters are particularly interesting. Hud is supposed to be the comedic relief, and while he does offer some pretty funny lines in the later trek through the Subway, he is, overall, not very funny. 

After the monster attacks, the story is simply the group of friends trying to rescue Rob’s girlfriend Beth, who is trapped in her destroyed apartment. Beth is never really set up that much and we don’t get too much insight into her character, so the whole mission to get her feels somewhat inconsequential. The rest of the movie is just a series of scenes where one character dies in a traumatic event, the group escapes, and they continue. 

Hud’s continued pursuit of hooking up with Marlena is put to an end when Marlena is killed, and then Hud himself is killed, and we’re left at the end with boring Rob and boring Beth (who, by the way, should’ve totally been dead because she had some serious injuries and blood loss) trapped under a bridge, and they die? I guess? I mean they found the camera and retrieved the footage, but it looks like the bridge gets completely destroyed, so I’m guessing they died. Whatever. 

Human characters are not why people go to see giant monster movies, despite Hollywood continuing to try and prove otherwise. As I said before, Clover didn’t look anything like I had been led to believe it would, and its role in the movie is so small, it’s barely a cameo. People complained hard core about not seeing enough Godzilla in 2014’s Godzilla. Someone went and cut together all the footage of just him and the video is about 8 minutes long. Someone go cut together all the Clover footage. I’ll be surprised if the video’s more than one minute.

In a movie like Alien, hiding the monster worked effectively to make it scarier. In Cloverfield, it doesn’t make the monster scarier, it makes it more frustrating for the audience, especially when the human characters aren’t particularly engaging. Every glimpse of Clover (with maybe the exception of the second to last scene of the movie) is just a tease. There’s no real money shot, and you can use the excuse that it’s found footage and it would be “unrealistic” to have a shot like that, but it’s unsatisfactory just the same. 

The thing I hated about the monster the most were the parasitic creatures that dropped off its body. The concept is cool and makes some sense, but it instantly reminds me of the baby Godzilla’s in 1998’s Godzilla. Having a giant monster is enough, there isn’t a need to add smaller, human-sized monsters for the humans to interact with while the giant monster is off doing its thing. The little creatures looked frightening, they made creepy noises, and they were but a small part of the movie, but it still just felt like middle-of-the-movie filler to excuse the lack of giant monster.

I never expected Cloverfield to be some mind-blowing movie-going experience, but it could have been a much more entertaining experience had it taken a slightly different direction. The later parts of the movie are definitely more entertaining than the earlier parts, but the found footage style doesn’t compliment the overall story. It’s very straight-forward and definitely lacks the re-watch-ability factor of something like Pacific Rim or Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake, but having said that, I still think giant monster movie fans should give it a watch. It’s has pretty good visual effects (especially considering it is found footage), a couple decent action scenes, and is short, clocking in at a mere 85 minutes.

The Bay Review: http://cccmovies.blogspot.ca/2015/10/week-5-something-smells-fishy-normal-0_29.html