10 Cloverfield Lane (with spoilers)

In all the gushing over superhero movies these days, I think maybe some excellent work is getting overlooked. I am not typically a devotee of the genre, but I found 10 Cloverfield Lane to be pretty awesome.

John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead provide excellent performances - Goodman is downright creepy, and Winstead somehow manages a combination of strength and human vulnerability that one needs in a hero in such a piece, and her character's arc is well played.

I now understand what they meant about it being a sort-of sequel to the original Cloverfield, though it shares almost none of the narrative or style of the original. It seems like another story, taking place in the same world, but under completely different circumstances.

I quite disliked the original because the "found footage" genre generally leaves me cold (with the exception of "Chronicle" and "The Europa Report") so when I saw that this film was in a more normal narrative style, I was interested. Glad to hear you thought it was good. I only know what I've seen in the first trailer, but it looks a lot like a "one room" style movie.

There are a few minutes of shaky cam in the beginning of the movie, but it isn't "found footage". There's some shake there to denote the agitation of a character, and it is over quickly.

Overall, the film is a normal narrative style, and most of it is within one restricted space, a few rooms only.

The ongoing ARG (alternate reality game) that painted so much of the backstory of Cloverfield picked up and has tied itself directly into 10 Cloverfield Lane. I'm really excited to see what else they have planned for this universe.

Umbran said:

There are a few minutes of shaky cam in the beginning of the movie, but it isn't "found footage". There's some shake there to denote the agitation of a character, and it is over quickly.

Overall, the film is a normal narrative style, and most of it is within one restricted space, a few rooms only.

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Shaky-cam is permissible, when used properly. It shouldn't be a whole film.

So my impressions seem to be spot on. I'll likely go see it this weekend then.

Nytmare said:

The ongoing ARG (alternate reality game) that painted so much of the backstory of Cloverfield picked up and has tied itself directly into 10 Cloverfield Lane. I'm really excited to see what else they have planned for this universe.

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OH, nice. Do you know a good entry point for those who had not been involved before?

A single entry point is tough, since the game really needs the benefit of the internet's hivemind. The fact that there even was a game was recognized through the different versions of the trailers and movie posters, and maybe a comment or two from the director and producers. What finally kicked things off was when someone emailed one of the (fake) companies that existed in the original Cloverfield puzzle and recognized that the automailed response had "2016 Employee of the Month" in the person's sig file, from a game that had supposedly gone cold in 2008. That information lead to a series of fake servers, faux hacker puzzles, and real world geocache styled dead drops that involved digging up ammo cannisters full of MREs and flash drives.

If you want to follow along with what's been discovered, and what some of the prevailing theories are, there's a reddit group at https://www.reddit.com/r/10cloverfieldlane/

[sblock] There's currently a surprisingly strong contingent of people (possibly just trolls) who are certain that Emmett was actually a secret bad guy/murderer/sexual predator and that Howard is just a misunderstood innocent who was himself being held captive in his own bomb shelter.[/sblock]

I found it engrossing and interesting, mostly the story telling; showing that there is a lot of horror in the world, from the personal to the apocalyptic events.