From producer J.J. Abrams and director Dan Trachtenberg comes the sequel ( or sidequel) to the hit found footage monster film Cloverfield. 10 Cloverfield Lane stars John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr. The script was written by Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken. 10 Cloverfield Lane is available on Blu-ray/DVD combo pack now!
After getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter by two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack.
Review
There was really only one location and three actors, that’s not a lot to work with. The pacing was great; I was surprised by how easily the smallest thing could change the entire direction of the story. The characters were also really fleshed out. We know where they came from and why they act the way they do. Each of them had a goal (and a plan on how to achieve that goal) at any given time. The best thing though was how the film let you imagine your own responses to the situations. What would you do in her place at any given moment? Hard to say but there’s always a compelling dilemma.
The acting was amazing. I mean John Gallagher Jr. and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were great but I want to talk about John Goodman. The man is amazing. As a thought experiment, I’m imaging John Goodman on Mars instead of Matt Damon and I think they would still have gone to bring him back. He definitely was the star of this show. In this role, he was terrifying and completely believable as the conspiracy nut living out the realization of his nightmares. When John Goodman was on screen, you knew what his character was thinking, even if he didn’t say a word. [Read Mark’s entire review of the film HERE]
Major Spoilers Ahead
Special Features
The Music: There’s an entire feature dedicated to composer Bear McCreary and I always love getting his insight on the projects he’s involved with. You may know him from The Walking Dead recently, but the man is a genius and easily one of the best movie musicians alive today. It was fascinating hearing him talk about character themes and which insane instruments they used for the score – one of which was a blaster or something along those lines – which is essentially a giant metal tube on guitar strings which adds an insane amount of tension to the soundtrack.
The Sidequel: JJ Abrams and Dan Trachtenberg provide a great amount of insight on how they went about crafting a sequel to their hit invasion found footage movie Cloverfield without it ever really being a sequel. The process behind it was fascinating and the behind-the-scenes footage of them building the entire bunker and how they went about this was really neat because they drew inspiration from real bomb shelters.
The Effects: So when you find out that there actually are aliens above-ground – holy shit first of all. But I love how the soundguy goes on to say that they used the noise of tape dispenser for the smaller attack alien that tries to get into the car at the end of the film. A tape dispenser – that’s all it is – but when you add a bunch of noise around it with score – it sounds like an alien screaming.
The features all add up to around 30 minutes in length so watch them from front to back and enjoy the depth each one provides – they’re all very much worth the price of grabbing 10 Cloverfield Lane on Blu-ray. The commentary is also a nice touch considering we get both Trachtenberg and Abrams.
Rating: [star rating=”4″]