My wife and I were talking about shlock movies today – you know, the kind that aren’t just awful, but gloriously awful to the point where you just can’t look away. While some of these are easy to identify (I am still on the lookout for a copy of 1995’s Cutthroat Island if anyone can point me in the right direction), others are a bit of a tougher call.
One such example is 2008’s Cloverfield, which has never really sunk (or risen?) to the level of “gloriously awful” but a film I saw when it first came out and I still think about from time to time. Fifteen years later, it’s time to revisit this monster flick and see if it’s a quiet classic or wonderful trainwreck.
Cloverfield follows the misadventures of a group of twenty-somethings as they try and survive an attack on New York by a giant monster. That’s… let me check my notes…. yep, that’s it. That’s the plot. There’s two couples, the douchebag Jason and his long-suffering girlfriend Lily, as well as Jason’s brother Rob, who is going to Japan, thus breaking the heart of the damsel in distress, Beth. All of this is being videorecorded by Jason and Rob’s friend Hud (get it? Heads-up display?) who is nursing a crush on Lily’s friend Marlena.
The film is presented as a “found footage” story, beginning with Hud filming Jason’s excruciating going-away party, then keeping the camera rolling as the party is crashed, quite literally, but the monster. Frankly I was relieved when the monster finally broke things up. The initial party scene goes for almost 20 minutes, which was about 15 minutes longer than it needed to. It isn’t helped by the fact that all three male leads are incredibly unlikeable, from the pent-up, grouchy Rob, the asshole brother Jason, and the uncomfortably creepy and clingy Hud. The dialogue ranges from unpleasant to pure cringe, which is realistic for the docudrama format but like waiting in line at the shops while being forced to listen to awkward teenagers argue in front of you.
From an overall plot point of view, there’s not much more going on here. The characters start off as one-note, and largely end up as one-note minus a pulse. No spoilers, but unfortunately the most unlikeable character hangs around for far, far too long, dragging the energy out of the story with him. At this point I’ll mention the film’s sequel, 10 Cloverfield Lane, which had some stellar character interaction as a trio are trapped together inside a bunker during a parallel attack. Check it out, it’s well worth a watch. If I had changed anything, I would have loved to see Cloverfield in a World War Z style narrative, with perhaps half a dozen small stories playing out in front of the terrified cameraman, all locking together to tell the larger story.
That said, it’s not all bad. The lack of a soundtrack works well with the choppy, hurried camerawork, and it’s a candid, ground-level view of what it’s like to try and escape from a cataclysm. I also like the fact that at no point do the survivors even think of trying to fight back. This isn’t a story about heroes. There’s some great texture to the different scenes, with short bursts of absolute terrified flight punctuated by exhausted, tremulous hiding. The special effects used to create a realistic experience of the disaster are, even by today’s standards, damn impressive.
So where does this leave us? I had honestly gone into this expecting to label this one as a trainwreck, but for what it is, it’s a pretty good film, dragged down by realistically awful dialogue. Let’s call this a flawed classic.
Agree? Disagree? Please share a comment below!
Leave a Reply