Macabre...ish Horror Review: Cloverfield
Cloverfield, 2008/ 85 min. The movie opens with Beth (Odette Annable) and Rob (Michael Stahl-David) playing around with a camcorder eventually heading to Coney Island. The tape jumps ahead to a surprise going away party for Rob as he heading heading to Japan for a job.
The party is a success plus some drama when it is interrupted by what may be an earthquake, causing a brief city wide power outage. The party goers go outside and the Statue of Liberty’s head rolls down the street in front of them. Hud, the person holding the camera, pans down the street and records a giant creature climbing and collapsing a building a few blocks away.
People are trying to evacuate the city via the Brooklyn Bridge and a creature’s tail destroys it, full of people, including Rob’s brother, Jason (Mike Vogel). Meanwhile, the National Guard is attacking the monster and smaller creatures, parasites, flee and attack people on the street below.
Rob checks his messages and discovers one from Beth, she’s trapped in her building and he’s determined to rescue her. Since they can’t change his mind party goers/friends, Hud (T. J. Miller), Lily (Jessica Lucas) and Marlena (Lizzie Caplan) follow him through Midtown Manhattan. They make a detour into the subway and are chased, then attacked by alien parasites and Marlena is hurt bad. They soon come upon a command center and field hospital just in time for Marlena’s eyes to bleed and she whisked away, into a tent where she appears to explode.
Rob convinces the CO to let them go and he is warned of the last departure of the evacuation helicopter before the military executes the Hammer Down Protocol that will destroy Manhattan. The friends make it to Beth’s building and it is now leaning against another building and Beth is impaled by rebar and has to be yanked off of it, in order to escape.
They make their way to the evacuation site and Lily is put into a departing helicopter and the rest in another. Unfortunately a creature grabs the second helicopter, causing it to crash.
The voice on the radio warns that in 15 minutes, the Hammer Down Protocol will begin. The friends regain consciousness and scramble from the helicopter and Hud is suddenly attacked. Rob and Beth take refuge under a bridge just before the protocol is engaged.
This movie has a good pace once it gets going. It is shaky cam/found footage format but it makes since considering the story. The effects are good and this was a fun watch.
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