I saw Cloverfield the other day, and thought that it was B-Movie heaven.

Who doesn’t love to see gorgeous people being attacked by evil creepies?
Who doesn’t love to watch a guy who puts his life and those of his friends’ in jeopardy to save a hot girl?
Who doesn’t love having a queasy stomach while watching an incessantly shaky viewpoint?
Who doesn’t love spotting the gaping plot holes, inconsistencies and predictable moments?
Who doesn’t love having little context in which to place the events of the movie, and no explanation for the monsters’ origins?

The first third of the movie was focussed on introducing us to the main players, in the hopes that we’d feel sympathy for them when the shit hit the fan. So we meet brothers Rob and Jason Hawkins, Rob’s best friend Hud, Jason’s girlfriend Lily (the gorgeous Jessica Lucas), Hud’s crush Marlena and Rob’s on/off girlfriend Beth.

During a party to mark Rob’s emigration to Japan a monster sets upon Manhattan. Rob and his friends decide to rescue Beth from her apartment, where she’s trapped and injured.

Not only must they avoid the giant monster itself, but also the mini monsters scuttling around the city who seem to enjoy snacking on human flesh. (In the scene where we see the military fighting off the monsters, the mini ones seem much more formidable than the ones that encounter Rob’s guys.)

The movie’s cameraman, Hud, gave an element of humour in between the tense or horrific scenes, and to me he felt more real than any of the other characters.

You know I could go on forever about all the little details which didn’t add up or make sense, but I shall class them as tributes to the B-Movie Deities.

Overall I felt that Cloverfield was a good attempt at a modern monster movie. I see it as similar in some ways to Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds, where we see one man’s attempts to live through an alien invasion, but I feel that WOW was a superior movie because it gave more context to the events.

Urban Recluse Rating:

Written by PJ | Posted in movies

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