Review of Cloverfield (2008) by Jim S — 09 Jan 2016

THIS IS A REBOOT OF A REVIEW I WROTE BACK IN 2008.

I'd have to call "Cloverfield" a guilty pleasure film. I'm certainly hard pressed to read anything into this little horror flick other than entertainment. It's just a straight out creature-feature which pays homage to classic genre films such as "Godzilla" and "Rodan". In fact, there's even a sly tip-of-the-hat to its Japanese predecessors within the end credit score as well as the fact that one of the main characters is heading off to Japan for a new job.

Produced by J.J. Abrams of small screen fame (he's given us such TV fare as "Lost" and "Fringe" and recently the big screen reboot of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens), the film is cast with a group of young, good looking unknown actors who manage to pull off credible performances of peril and doom. Fast paced (it runs a tight 85 mins), it's well directed by Matt Reeves, who also cut his teeth in television. With some effective "boo" scares and high quality special effects that belie its relatively meager $25 million budget, this is a "cuddle-up on the couch and get scared" popcorn movie.

The only drawback to this film is that it's shot in a hand held, first person style (not unlike "Blair Witch"), which even on TV tends to induce some major bouts of vertigo. Make sure you have a supply of Gravol on hand.