 | Genre: Horror, Action |
Yes, the Statue of Liberty gets her head knocked right off, and it rolls down the street. The headless statue is the key part of the poster, and the footage of her rolling head was in all the trailers. I was waiting for it, and it was a bit silly to see. If it was size accurate, it's a smaller statue than I thought. It's a creative version of the "Statue of Liberty is destroyed" disaster movie cliche, and that's a near-mandatory cliche.
There's plenty of death and destruction, and some gore. The main characters get some injuries that I didn't really want to look at, and they find themselves in a makeshift hospital during a crisis. It's not out of place, but isn't for the overly squeamish.
Being only mediumly squeamish, the fast paced plot distracted me. The opening few scenes are at a going-away party (a sensible thing to film) as we learn about the characters and their relations to each other. After that lulls us into a false sense of security, disaster strikes and our characters run; the plot starts to run, too, and we watch every plot detail jump up.
It's often thought that not showing the monster is better than showing the monster, but our view of the Cloverfield monster is not a bad thing at all. The build up of views of seemingly-causeless destruction, smaller monsters and glimpses of the big monster, the overheard view is a release of tension. The way it moves is creepy and I wasn't expecting it to look like that; you may feel differently, but up until that moment I felt like I was watching a Godzilla inspired film and was expecting a Godzilla inspired monster appearance.
The footage is accidentally being filmed over some holiday footage, and cuts to it whenever they turn the camera off. These sudden scenes of normal life give a clash to the horror, making each more extreme compared to the other. The ending, cut to footage of the pre-Cloverfield horizon, gives a suggestion of the monster's origin and leaves the audience with a strange sense of calm. Fitting, as the last we see of the characters is resignation, calm considering the circumstances. The viewer is calm, too, as the ending is fairly conclusive despite subtle sequel hints. Rarely does high-tension horror or action bring you to a completely cliffhanger-less finale, so it's a pleasing surprise and nicely paired with the calm end footage.
There's plenty of death and destruction, and some gore. The main characters get some injuries that I didn't really want to look at, and they find themselves in a makeshift hospital during a crisis. It's not out of place, but isn't for the overly squeamish.
Being only mediumly squeamish, the fast paced plot distracted me. The opening few scenes are at a going-away party (a sensible thing to film) as we learn about the characters and their relations to each other. After that lulls us into a false sense of security, disaster strikes and our characters run; the plot starts to run, too, and we watch every plot detail jump up.
It's often thought that not showing the monster is better than showing the monster, but our view of the Cloverfield monster is not a bad thing at all. The build up of views of seemingly-causeless destruction, smaller monsters and glimpses of the big monster, the overheard view is a release of tension. The way it moves is creepy and I wasn't expecting it to look like that; you may feel differently, but up until that moment I felt like I was watching a Godzilla inspired film and was expecting a Godzilla inspired monster appearance.
The footage is accidentally being filmed over some holiday footage, and cuts to it whenever they turn the camera off. These sudden scenes of normal life give a clash to the horror, making each more extreme compared to the other. The ending, cut to footage of the pre-Cloverfield horizon, gives a suggestion of the monster's origin and leaves the audience with a strange sense of calm. Fitting, as the last we see of the characters is resignation, calm considering the circumstances. The viewer is calm, too, as the ending is fairly conclusive despite subtle sequel hints. Rarely does high-tension horror or action bring you to a completely cliffhanger-less finale, so it's a pleasing surprise and nicely paired with the calm end footage.
