10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg
After a catastrophic car crash, a young woman wakes up in a survivalist's underground bunker, where he claims to have saved her from an apocalyptic attack that has left the outside world uninhabitable.
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39 films that influenced 10 Cloverfield Lane
What critics say influenced 10 Cloverfield Lane
Goodman’s performance lulls you into a false sense of security with his endearing teddy bear demeanour (still in currency from his Rosanne days) that cracks during fits of rage to reveal a frightening villain channeling a little of Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes from Misery but with less sadism.
No, you should stay focused on the matter at hand: a masterfully suspenseful mystery thriller set in a doomsday bunker, with a story that conjures “Misery,” “Alien,” “The Twilight Zone,” several Steven Spielberg movies, and at least one episode of “Breaking Bad.” (YOU’LL KNOW THE ONE.) Directed with astonishing confidence by first-timer Dan Trachtenberg, the film uses a deceptively simple premise, carefully scripted (by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle) so that no information is wasted and each new piece of it furthers the mystery.
At different times during its 105 minutes, "10 Cloverfield" recalls H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," Stephen King's "Misery" and Steven Spielberg's "Jaws."
One moment, Goodman is channeling his old playbook while playing every man Dan Conner on Roseanne , the next he’s borrowing plays from Kathy Bates in Misery .
There are shades of Misery here, though Howard’s obsession is not as much with Michelle as it is with the correctness, the prescience, of his own preparedness.
Starting out as a cut-rate Misery , this first feature from Dan Trachtenberg quickly comes to resemble an old Twilight Zone half-hour padded to feature length, partly through a climax that, well, spoilers!
But in general, the tone is a throwback to many of the old school kind of thrillers that took larger-than-life concepts and fears, and grounded them in a cynical psychology; films like Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach where most of the world ended in nuclear explosion, yet Australians are forced to quizzically carry on as if nothing happened while radioactive fallout inches closer every passing week.
Michelle is on the highway, fleeing her normal life in a sequence that, in its tone and scoring, recalls the opening scenes of Psycho — and turns out to be as much of a red herring.
These opening scenes are clearly designed to be reminiscent of another story of a woman who left the city for a dangerous countryside, as Michelle packing her bags and Bear McCreary’s overheated, Hermann-esque score will make anyone who’s seen "Psycho" think of Marion Crane in the opening act of Hitchcock's classic.
In an opening sequence that eerily echoes Marion Crane’s flight from justice in “Psycho,” an emotionally distraught Louisiana woman named Michelle (Winstead) packs her bags and drives out into the night.
Her trip has a whiff of Janet Leigh busting out of town in Psycho .
Esoterically and ambiguously mentioned earlier that 10 Cloverfield Lane borrows much from Hitchcock, the one movie that almost immediately comes to mind is The Birds .
The spiritual sequel to "Cloverfield" has been shrouded in mystery, but can the final product live up to the hype?
While producer J.J. Abrams describes “10 Cloverfield Lane” as being very different but in “the same wheelhouse” as the 2008 film “Cloverfield,” it still needs to be stressed that this intense, continually gripping and extremely engrossing movie is not a sequel to the equally excellent earlier film, also produced by Abrams.
There’s an adequate thriller in “10 Cloverfield Lane” – 60 year-old man saves (or abducts) 30 year-old woman and stashes her in his doomsday shelter, claiming a world-ending chemical attack – but it doesn’t deserve to share a name with 2008 cinematic theme park ride “Cloverfield.”
★★★½ Not so much a sequel as a sidebar to the 2008 "found footage" monster movie "Cloverfield," this ingenious and claustrophobic thriller is compact enough to be almost the movie equivalent of a black box theater production: For most of its length, it needs only three characters and a single location -- a well-stocked survivalist bunker -- to keep audiences on edge.
John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in 10 Cloverfield Lane.
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It will remind the savvy cinephile of works such as Wait Until Dark and Rope , the single setting used to evoke as much fear and horror as the potential apocalypse promised outside.
At different times during its 105 minutes, "10 Cloverfield" recalls H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," Stephen King's "Misery" and Steven Spielberg's "Jaws."
Which is not say there are no extraterrestrial terrors lurking in this taut, three-character chamber piece — think “Room” by way of “War of the Worlds” — only that the tension is rooted in psychology rather than gimmickry, and evinces a command of craft that feels old-fashioned in the most refreshing possible sense.
The less known about the plot the better, but the bare bones of the narrative find Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) waking up in the underground bunker of conspiracy nut Howard (John Goodman), who warns of a dangerous "attack" that has rendered the outside world uninhabitable (basically Room meets War of the Worlds ).
Porque no me pueden decir que todo esto no les pareció familiar: la casa alumbrada por la nave espacial, los tentáculos de un objeto volador medio mecánico, medio orgánico, el ojo escrutiñador son referencia directa a todos las adaptaciones de War of the Worlds; la resolución dudosa de una bomba molotov improvisada con whisky y papel (¿?) en el ojo del invasor como recuerdo del sacrificio del piloto en Independence Day; el mensaje de radio y la resolución guerrera como guiño a todas las películas de invasión marciana o apocalipsis zombi…
At different times during its 105 minutes, "10 Cloverfield" recalls H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," Stephen King's "Misery" and Steven Spielberg's "Jaws."
What follows is a twisty, sinewy three-hander in which each of the trapped trio variously trusts and suspects the others’ moves and motives – more The Disappearance of Alice Creed meets Room than War of the Worlds .
In 1971, Steven Spielberg directed a film called Duel for ABC Television, based on a Richard Matheson novel.
The frame tracks and cuts itself to accentuate the momentum of his movements, presenting him as a barreling juggernaut — the boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark constantly looming over his prisoners.
It’s definitely a spiritual sequel in every way in the same idea that “Halloween III” was a spiritual sequel to “Halloween.”
Con un guion de Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken y Demian Chazelle (Whiplash), el personaje de Mary Elizabeth Winstead cumple en gran forma con los dos arquetipos de mujeres badass en el cine de género: por un lado es la scream queen de terror/suspenso tipo Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween), y por otro también es la mujer de acción frente a lo desconocido (imposible no mencionar a Ellen Ripley), quien resuelve los conflictos con base en su experiencia en diferentes rubros.
Abrams deserves some credit for taking an unusual approach to franchise building, attempting what John Carpenter tried and failed to do with Halloween —namely, construct an anthology series around a successful brand name.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead ( The Thing , Smashed ) is excellent as Michelle, self-sufficient without being superhuman, her eyes alert to any opportunity to escape.
(She previously appeared as Bruce Willis’ daughter in the fourth Die Hard film and as the lead in the prequel to John Carptenter’s The Thing .)
Mary Elizabeth Winstead ( The Thing , Die Hard 4.0 ) is perfectly cast as newly single Michelle, who tries to escape her emotional turmoil only to find herself plunged into a painful predicament and isolated from the outside world without explanation.
Winstead nicely unites the dynamic dramatic work she has done in films such as "Smashed" and "Faults" with that from more conventional action and horror roles in movies like "A Good Day to Die Hard" and "The Thing."
The good stuff starts when Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead from the crappy remake of The Thing ) gets knocked unconscious in a fierce car crash that’s strikingly intercut with the opening titles.
Al desarrollar pacientemente la premisa del bunker, el director Dan Trachtenberg, de la mano de un grandioso soundtrack y las composiciones grandilocuentes del aclamado Bear McCreary ( Battlestar Galactica , The Walking Dead ), acumula la tensión con inventividad y soltura.
From The Walking Dead to Battlestar Galactica , the end of the world brings out people’s true colors.
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They brazenly lift from old Twilight Zone episodes, the indie horror Right at Your Door and likely even from Quebecer Denis Côté’s Curling , which made better use of the pop song “I Think We’re Alone Now” for its backwoods creep show.
Far from a big-budget disaster flick, 10 Cloverfield is a chamber drama that resembles nothing so much as William Friedkin's little-seen 2006 film Bug.