Cloverfield (2008)

Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.

Director:

Matt Reeves

Writer:

Drew Goddard

Stars:

Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller

4 wins & 11 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Lizzy Caplan	...	Marlena Diamond
Jessica Lucas	...	Lily Ford
T.J. Miller	...	Hudson 'Hud' Platt
Michael Stahl-David	...	Rob Hawkins
Mike Vogel	...	Jason Hawkins
Odette Annable	...	Beth McIntyre (as Odette Yustman)
Anjul Nigam	...	Bodega Cashier
Margot Farley	...	Jenn
Theo Rossi	...	Antonio
Brian Klugman	...	Charlie
Kelvin Yu	...	Clark
Liza Lapira	...	Heather
Lili Mirojnick	...	Lei
Ben Feldman	...	Travis
Elena Caruso	...	Party Goer

Storyline

Cloverfield follows five New Yorkers from the perspective of a hand-held video camera. The movie is exactly the length of a DV Tape and a sub-plot is established by showing bits and pieces of video previously recorded on the tape that is being recorded over. The movie starts as a monster of unknown origin destroys a building. As they go to investigate, parts of the building and the head of the Statue of Liberty come raining down. The movie follows their adventure trying to escape and save a friend, a love interest of the main character.

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Plot Keywords:

monster | explosion | apartment | video camera | statue | 

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Taglines:

Some Thing Has Found Us

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Genres:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for violence, terror and disturbing images

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [jp] Official site [ua]

Country:

USA

Language:

English Russian

Release Date:

18 January 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

1-18-08

Filming Locations:

Bloomingdale's - 1000 Third Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£3,485,956 (UK) (1 February 2008)

Gross:

$80,034,302 (USA) (4 April 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Bad Robot

Technical Specs

Runtime:

85 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the beginning of the movie, Beth, played by Odette Annable, talks about how she could see the footage Rob was taking on the internet. Yustman also starred in a movie called Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape, in which she plays a teacher whose career is ruined when a video of her winds up on the internet.

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Goofs

We see Lily wearing gold heeled shoes throughout most of the movie. Then when the group are walking up the stairs to cross to Beths Apartment she takes her shoes off. A Short time later when Lily, Hud and Rob are crossing to the Apartment roof, Lily is wearing Gold flat footed shoes, not the heels she was wearing before. Her shoes then change back a short time later.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Rob Hawkins: It's 6:42 AM. Beth's dad's place. He's out of town. And it's already a good day.

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Crazy Credits

At the end of the closing credits there is a garbled radio transmission which some say sounds like "Help us!", when played backward it says "It's still alive!"

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Connections

References The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

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Soundtracks

"Got Your Moments"
Written by Bryan Garza, Robert Garza, Peter Krimmel & James Krimmel
Performed by Scissors for Lefty
Courtesy of Eenie Meenie Records

User Reviews

Tremendous thrills!

Some people have derisively compared this film to The Blair Witch Project because it was all told from the point of view of someone's shaking camera. Unless you have motion sickness, I don't think that's a bad thing. What matters is who's in front of the camera. While The Blair Witch Project featured annoying people screaming at each other, this movie actually made me care about the characters. In fact if it had continued with the romantic drama tone established during the first half hour, I STILL think it would have been worth watching and that's the biggest compliment I can give it.

Of course people will be watching this movie for the visceral pleasure and Colverfield delivers. Many thrilling visual and sound effects wowed me (there were a few times I yelled out in shock at a sudden scare). Any horror film will also benefit from a sense of entrapment and this movie pulls off the seemingly impossible feat of making New York City seem claustrophobic because there was seemingly nowhere to hide from the monster.

What is the monster? Whatever it is clearly is meant to be an allegory for the carnage 9/11 inflicted on New York, much the same way Godzilla was meant to be an allegory for the damage inflicted on Japan by the atom bomb. There are moments seemingly recreating the documentary footage from 9/11, and they give the film verisimilitude. Touching upon real life horror, plus creating characters that we can relate to and care about, and assaulting our senses with incredible sights and sounds leads to entertainment worth watching many times over. Perhaps the 80 minute run time will bother some people, but on the other hand I think that's better than a film wearing out its welcome. Great job J.J. Abrams and company!