1st April 2016
I’ve created a quick illustration to go with this review, it’s not very often you’ll be blessed with the presence of my (average) design ability, but I liked the film and it motivated me to create something inspired by it, after detoxing for 3 days following the 8,000 calorie challenge I participated in during the film ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ gets a rating of 4/5 stars from me!
As an avid cinemagoer, I invest a lot of my free time watching new films while over indulging in chocolate and self-pity and now that I’ve successfully morphed my partner into sharing this interest, we go to the cinema, pretty much every weekend.
Recently, we decided to go and see ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ – a sequel(ish) to the 2008 movie ‘Cloverfield’. I was skeptical about going because ‘Cloverfield’ was a terrible film in my opinion, a shaky cameraman that reminded me of my nan on childhood birthdays, mixed with the dodgy acting you usually see in Emmerdale. That film left me really underwhelmed and I was happy that there had been no direct sequel for several years so I could sleep well at night knowing nobody’s being put through that sort of visual pain again.
Anyway, fast forward 8 years and here we are, the sequel I had been dreading. After reading all the reviews I could find, I was surprised to learn the film was getting quite positive feedback, so I packed all of my Christmas and Easter chocolate into my un-suspicious coat (4 foot pockets – perfect for illegally smuggling in food to avoid paying £5.89 for a pack of Malteasers that includes 95% air) and I was on my way.
The film was ridiculously tense at only 5 minutes in; it instantly gripped you with skilled sound design (I was in an Xplus screen so the sound was incredible), clever dialogue and sudden jump inducing scares. I knew within 10 minutes I was going to enjoy it. If you’re familiar with Cloverfield, you’ll have a clue as to what’s going on but to summarise the story in my simple, West Midlands way: there’s a global alien outbreak which causes terror across the world, everyone dies and no one knows what’s going on… so basically like every other film about aliens.
The film is set in an underground bunker and follows a young woman called Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who is held with two men, Howard (John Goodman) and Emmet (John Gallagher Jr.), one of whom insists that there has been a hostile event that has left the surface of the earth inhabitable. The story twists along many unpredictable turns of events, which grip your attention instantly and force you to attempt to predict the outcome – a nearly impossible task!
The acting (especially John Goodman) is impeccable and the script is creative but realistic at the same time. It’s extremely refreshing to see a Horror/Thriller film portraying realistic decisions made by the characters, where for once I didn’t find myself getting annoyed at their idiotic choices they were making. In fact half way through thinking to myself ‘why doesn’t she do this’ she was already doing it.
I can’t say too much about the film, because the whole point the story is that it’s a mystery that unravels itself piece by piece. But I can say don’t worry if you haven’t seen ‘Cloverfield’. This film has it’s own storyline which is what makes it so brilliant. Fun fact of the day: it was never supposed to be a sequel to ‘Cloverfield’ – it was originally going to be titled ‘The Cellar’ but under production by Bad Robot, it was developed into a spin-off.
Go and see this film! It will leave you with clammy hands but eagerly waiting for the arrival of the sequel (it’ll probably be called something like ‘Cloverfield Road’ – or ‘The Field of Clover 3’).
Tom
