Chris At The Pictures

Director Dan Trachtenberg and producer J.J. Abrams flip a middle finger in the face of hype culture with this startling mystery thriller that emerged almost from nowhere. Originally titled The Cellar, Trachtenberg’s debut feature bears a last minute title change and – in the spirit of Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot – is repackaged as a cinematic mystery box, with minimal teaser footage withheld until two months prior to release. 

We begin with Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Michelle fleeing her home. Glancing away from the road for a split second to turn up the radio (hoping to drown out her husband’s urgent calls), she is hit by another driver and careers off the road. She awakens in an underground bunker, presided over by Howard (John Goodman), a lumbering control-freak who informs her that an attack has left the outside world uninhabitable. Sharing the immaculately prepared space is Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), a believer in Howard’s tale who helped construct the shelter years before ‘the event’.

I entered the cinema to watch this with a canned drink and a small chocolate bar. I emerged, two hours later, with the chocolate untouched and the can crushed beyond recognition. 10 Cloverfield Lane is pure cinematic striptease: a slow, deliberate unravelling of small details, building the tension with every delicate move until the final display. Jeff Cutter’s claustrophobic cinematography is sly disclosure, the sound design is a broiling flame of anticipation, whilst Bear McCreary’s score is the tick-tocking prelude to an unknown conclusion.

What a glorious relief it is to see a film that refuses to spoon-feed an audience; the teasers withdrew from revealing basic plot details, and the finished picture, too, exists in a continuous realm of uncertainty. Alfred Hitchcock famously described suspense as two people sat conversing with a bomb under the table. Neither participant knows the bomb is there, but the audience does. Trachtenberg flips this marvellously on its head: all three inhabitants of the bunker believe something dangerous lies above, but the audience can never be sure. Is Howard telling the truth? Is he just a paranoid freak? Or is Michelle the paranoid one?

Winstead towers as a lead, and Michelle is a freshly intelligent role that gives the ‘dumb horror protagonist’ cliché a deft blow to the head. In both name and appearance, she closely resembles Chell, the main playable character of Valve’s Portal series; a white vest-clad woman who trades in wit and invention, joined in her search for clues by the player, or in this case, the audience.

Goodman similarly impresses: while his performance bears the imposing presence we’ve come to expect, the key to understanding Howard lies in the small askance looks bookending his explanations, or maybe in his bizarre denial of Michelle’s gender identity. Emmett is the one slight misstep, given only the briefest of development to avoid disrupting the taut interplay between his co-stars. Regardless, Gallagher Jr. inhabits the character effectively as all three wend their distrustful, nail-chewing way towards the climax.

When the denouement is revealed, connections to the original Cloverfield are peripheral yet ingenious: it could be understood in any number of ways, both in the film universe and out. What we find within the latest of Abrams’ puzzle chests is another elaborate enigma; one that intrigues, teases, and leaves you shuddering with fear and excitement.