Cloverfield (2008), Pt. 1

This post is the first of a two-part extended meditation on the movie Cloverfield. The first post is more of the regular critique and review of the movie that (sparsely) populates this site. The second entry I envision to be a more in-depth examination of the flick in the context of some of Slavoj Žižek's theories and some cultural criticism (specifically monster theory). So avoid that one if this posting is too esoteric for you.

This movie is essentially Alien combined with Godzilla with a splash of the cinematography of The Blair Witch Project. Now, that's not to say there's something inherently wrong with taking ideas from other movies and filmmakers--and it's damn sure not to say that I'm some sort of structuralist who exist only to find patterns, homages, and borrowings in movies. To put originality on a pedestal as we have since the British Romantics held sway is a mistake in my opinion. Some of the most "original" works are also known as really shitty works; there has to be a connection with the past tradition of horror movies (or poetry, or music, or whatever). People praise things like The Blair Witch Project for its bravery in not focusing on the "monster" at the center, but Alien pioneered that back in 1979. People praise the Rolling Stones and Cream for making such a radical break with rock tradition, but all they did was combine the pop-rock that people like The Beatles and The Who had been playing with the American blues tradition. Both are new because they are operating within a tradition and they are extending that tradition, but that doesn't fulfill the sort of dreamy, inspired originality that most people think of.

All that to say there were some significant borrowings from earlier movies--some better than others. For example, I liked the Escape from New York homage with the flying head of the Statue of Liberty landing on the street in pretty much the same position as it was on the movie poster from John Carpenter's 1981 flick.

Cloverfield does, however, have some idiotic horror movie clichés. The cell phone battery dying at an inopportune time is equivalent to the bad guy cutting the phone lines or the inability to get cell service (exception: the protagonist praying for bars on his cell in Stephen King's Desperation, but I've only read the book, so it might suck in the movie version). And the characters thinking that the monster is dead, but it turns out it's not and they're not safe? How surprising to see that twist! These are two of the worst offenders to my mind. Horror movie directors and writers of the world: stop it! You're not going to get anywhere riding these dead horses.

Again (like Sgt. Apone in Aliens, Sgt. Brodski in Jason X, and One in Resident Evil), we also have a Black, tough-as-nails sergeant, but it's not nearly as egregious as it was in Resident Evil if only because they didn't steal the rest of the marine squad characters. Just thought I'd point out my favorite horror movie cliché. If you count the "hammerdown" option used by the military (and lifted from Return of the Living Dead), then this thing is chock full of clichés. Maybe not as many as the 2006 version of When a Stranger Calls, but still.

What did bother me more than anything else is how it follows (for the most part...see below for an exception) the 3-act formula of horror movies. There's a giant fucking monster attacking so let's go down into the subway tunnels to escape. Hell, even the idiot-narrator Hud knows this is a bad idea: "I just can't stop thinking how scary it would be if a flaming homeless guy came out of the dark right now...I'm sorry...I'm just saying." (That actually plays really funny in the movie, but there's too damn much of it throughout--like after Beth's rescue: Beth: "What is that?" Hud: "It's a, it's a terrible thing." Beth: "What the hell was that?" Hud: "I don't know. Something else. Also terrible." He was funny, but just overdid the whole thing--to the point where I was partially relieved when he got offed.) Anyway, it was pretty obvious that the whole subway thing was a plot device to introduce the little monsters and get the group in contact with the military.

I'm still not quite sure I know why Marlena had to die; if she did need to die, why in that particular way? I have the sneaking, terrible suspicion that her death (a la Alien) is going to be the lynch pin for the sequel that is in the works right now. (WHY?!? Didn't Abrams see Book of Shadows, the Blair Witch sequel?). My first thought was that she was going to turn into a zombie or something because she was bitten--at which case I would have likely become enraged. But Marlena's death was so odd and out of character for the rest of the movie that I think it's going to have something to do with the sequel. You heard it here first...even before Harry Knowles told you (and you didn't even have to read it in ALL CAPS).

So a lot of the knocks against this flick I'd heard were about the shakey-camcorder thing--that it was at best distracting and at worst sickening. I expected to hate it because, to me, that was the absolute worst thing about The Bourne Supremacy (I mean, all that fight choreography work, and the way it came out on the screen, it could have been a scene from You Got Served run at 1.5 speed). But, miracle of miracles, I didn't mind it too much here, but I think it might have gotten to me if I'd seen it in the theater.

One of the two things I liked best about this flick, though, was the exception to the 3-act formula I referenced before. Mad props for not selling out in the end with some sort of happy ending for Rob and Beth. Mad props for resisting the Independence Day-style "we've-figured-out-its-weakness-and-now-we-can-beat-it" bullshit. It was a ballsy move to make a movie end just like life: no answers, no grand story arc, no survivors.

The other thing I loved was the level of thought put into (almost) every facet of the film. The more I think about its intricacies, the more impressed I am. There are all sorts of little things that begin to create a clearer picture of the story--but are certainly not required to understand the basic plot-points. For instance, someone posted on the "Trivia" section for this movie at IMDb that in the very last scene when the camera is filming the ocean, if you look very closely at the horizon line on the right side of the screen, you can see a far-away object fall out of the sky and hit the water. Bingo. Hud-the-man-child-idiot's theory was right, and we are to understand that the monster came from space--despite the circumstantial evidence of Rob moving to Tokyo and the monster coming out of the ocean suggesting a Godzilla-like creature from some remote island. (A scenario also suggested by the King Kong frame supposedly spliced in.) That makes for shit luck for Coney Island--and the rest of New York--but for damn fine, detail-oriented filmmaking. So in the end, it was not as bad as it could have been, but certainly not as good as advertised, either.

Up next, 9/11, monsters, and the cultural consciousness of Americans!