Author’s note: I believe 10 Cloverfield Lane is best experienced going in blind. Do so if possible and come back and read this review.
After the typically barren movie months of January and February, I desperately craved a film that would remind me why I go to the movies.
I am pleased to say that a film has arrived to reinvigorate my love for the great big American blockbuster. One that kept my heart pounding and my eyes wide with wonder. One that has filled me with more hope for the upcoming summer movie season than is probably wise.
Ladies and gentlemen, that film is:
Gods of Egypt.
Nah, I’m kidding. 10 Cloverfield Lane is that film.
10 Cloverfield Lane is a sequel in name only to the 2008 found footage film Cloverfield. That film divided audiences upon its release. People loved it. Others hated it. I was somewhere in the middle thinking that while it was smarter than your average found footage film, it was nevertheless held back by being a found footage film.
This film wisely ditches that dated gimmick and delivers a tense, claustrophobic thriller in which a young woman named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) finds herself trapped with a broken leg in an underground apocalypse-prep bunker with loose screws survivalist Howard (John Goodman) and fellow prisoner Emmet (John Gallagher Jr.) who is also suffering an injury.
Howard insists that the apocalypse is happening directly above them and forbids them from leaving all while insisting that he is their savior. Michelle immediately mistrusts him and has to decide whether to stay in the bunker with a potential madman or escape and face God knows what outside.
I was reminded heavily of The Mist throughout in the way that, as many people smarter than me have put it, the humans are the real monsters. Goodman is more terrifying than any kaiju was in the original and whatever haunts outside 10 Cloverfield Lane. Winstead brings a lot of conviction to a role that may have otherwise been your standard horror female lead role in the hands of a less capable actress.
I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the big reveal here, and while I maintain that the humans inside the bunker are more frightening than what is outside, the film does not disappoint. So grab your friends, buy some popcorn and get seated for the best monster movie in a long, long time. Oscar bait season and the winter dumping period are over.
Movies are fun again.