You Can’t Drink Just Six!
February 20, 2008
Cloverfield
In cinemas now
Before I entered the cinema to see Cloverfield, the JJ Abrams-viral-marketed-monster flick, a friend instructed me, via SMS, to text him my opinions of the film afterwards.
After I peeled my sweating body from the cheap Odeon seating, and prised my white knuckles from the arms, I managed summed up my opinions in about five words:
“HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME!”
I think I can safely say, without reprieve (well, until I go see No Country For Old Men, maybe), that Cloverfield may very well be the film of the year. And it’s only Feburary.
Let me explain, using poorly thought-out sentences and analogies. The reason Cloverfield has me spitting superlatives like a ten year old who’s just seen Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure for the first time is because it manages to do what many (make that most) Hollywood films fail to do – it just works.
The film’s gimmick, if you didn’t already know, is that it’s all filmed on a handheld camera – not Michael Bay-style Parkinsons-disease shaky-cam, but actually filmed by one of the protagonists, the endearingly dorky and awkward Hud (it’s like heads-up-display, see?)
This “gimmick”, while making a few (pansy) patrons get motion sickness, really is the crux of the film; it’s what invests you in the story, the characters, the events – this film immerses you more than you thought a monster movie could, or, some might argue, should.
Even events that would seem, well, stupid in other films (a skyscraper leaning on another? And they climb up it? WTF?) instead make you sweat like a paedophile in a schoolyard, and I was actually scared in parts – and I never get scared by films. Ever. I watch horror films to laugh, for God’s sake.
Actually, the last film that really scared me is The Blair Witch Project, which was filmed in a similar way to Cloverfield; so I guess, if you want to make your film scary, have it all shot on handheld (though apparently that didn’t really work for George Romero’s latest, Diary of the Dead). But also make sure to create characters the audience actually care about, have some of that Joss Whedon-esque witty dialogue, and don’t just make it retarded as hell (I’m looking at you, 1998 Godzilla).
Those looking for a b-movie, guys-in-rubber-suits kaiju film of destruction…well, you’ve sort of got it. But it’s that bit extra that Cloverfield adds which makes it special.
