MONSTERS COME IN MANY FORMS.

After a car crash, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up in a concrete room, chained to a wall; a man (John Goodman) who brings her food tells her that there’s been an ”attack” and that he saved her life. Not a direct sequel to Cloverfield (2008), but the filmmakers describe it as a ”blood relative”. Thankfully not shot in found-footage style, the director’s feature debut has the same kind of catastrophic atmosphere as the first film, and becomes more similar to it in the intense last half-hour. However, the lion’s share of the movie intriguingly explores a fearful climate in our era of terrorism. Boosted by Goodman’s performance and an exciting music score. 

2016-U.S. 103 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by J.J. Abrams, Lindsey Weber. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg. Screenplay: Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, Damien Chazelle. Music: Bear McCreary. Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Michelle), John Goodman (Howard Stambler), John Gallagher, Jr. (Emmett DeWitt). Voice of Bradley Cooper.

Trivia: Co-executive produced by Cloverfield’s director, Matt Reeves. Followed by The Cloverfield Paradox (2018).

Last word: “I think that, certainly had we not had ‘Cloverfield’ in the title, you would be more surprised by the final act of the movie. But it’s a flip of the coin either way. Some people think, ‘How awesome is it that the movie goes there?’ And some think, ‘How lame is it…’ I think the title is helpful to suggest to some people that it’s not so out of left field and that it is baked into the experience. You could rationalize it either way.” (Trachtenberg, Indiewire)

IMDb