The movie poster warns us that “monsters come in many forms” and the air of uncertainty created by Director Dan Trachtenberg brings that promise to life, making this thriller a twisting nail-biter to the end.
After a bad car accident, Michelle wakes to find herself forcibly held inside a bunker deep underground with two strangers who may or may not be who they say they are. She’s informed that a holocaust of some kind has made the surface of the planet uninhabitable but when an alien invasion is brought into the conversation, Michelle’s suspicions turn to fear and she plots her escape into the unknown outside world.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead heads the stellar cast as Michelle, depicting her growing uncertainty with absolute conviction. As evidence mounts against her host however, she starts to prove the innocent can also resort to monstrous doings as their desperation grows.
Fellow survivor Emmett (John Gallagher Jr) brings some normalcy to the claustrophobic situation, but admits to having forced his way into the bunker when the disaster struck outside. Having helped build the structure however, he appears to show little knowledge of it’s intricacies and soon begins to turn against the man who saved him.
As their potential captor or saviour (we don’t know which), John Goodman is outstanding. In one of the best roles of his illustrious career, he presents an unstable doomsday prepper who has long been ready for the end of the world. In return for rescuing them, he demands absolute loyalty but his fastidious personality and dark past begins to unravel a deeper danger.
Drew Goddard and Daniel Casey’s tense screenplay is based on a story by Matthew Stuecken and Josh Campbell and, while the setup may sound familiar to some, they have created enough twists to keep the keenest sleuth guessing. The fear hits with a bang only a few minutes in and remains high until the closing moments.
There’s no official word whether 10 Cloverfield Lane is actually related to Goddard’s 2008 monster flick, Cloverfield, a found-footage horror about a creature attack on New York City. It could just be that Cloverfield is Goddard’s schtik much like author Stephen King favours Maine so often in his novels. This film is neither a sequel nor a continuation of anyone’s story from that first film. The similarity in titles suggests that perhaps 10 Cloverfield Lane is connected in some way but the question of “how?”, if at all, can only be answered after surviving the thrill-ride.
Despite having very limited directing experience, Trachtenberg plays expertly with pacing and atmosphere, making 10 Cloverfield Lane a sure hit and perhaps opening the way for further films in Goddard’s Cloverfield universe.
Reviewed by Rod Lewis
Twitter: @StrtegicRetweet
Rating out of 10: 9
10 Cloverfield Lane will be released in cinemas on 10 March 2016.
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