Cloverfield (2008)
Director: Matt Reeves
Genre: Monster on the Loose, Ameri-kaiju
THE MOVIE
Cloverfield might have been the victim of its own wildly successful marketing campaign. The trailer for Cloverfield came out of nowhere, attached to 2007’s megahit Transformers and it gave almost no information about the movie whatsoever. Not even the title.
And people went nuts. Speculation on the internet raged. People analyzed every little bit of information parsed out in the various viral websites and games associated with the movie. Was it a new Godzilla movie? Was it a Voltron movie? (“It’s a lion! It's huge!”) Was it an American Gamera movie? A Lost movie? What it actually was, was an attempt to create an iconic American movie monster that could stand with Godzilla.
While it remains to be seen if Cloverfield will have any kind of staying power in the American popular consciousness (anyone watch The Blair Witch Project recently? Didn’t think so.), it is an undeniably compelling experience and a unique take on the giant monster genre. While Cloverfield has its roots in Japanese kaiju movies, it avoids the mistakes usually made by American attempts to adapt the genre (see 1998’s Godzilla). The monster is kept largely mysterious; there are no long-winded attempts to explain anything. There are no talking-head scientists or feisty girl reporters to provide the characteristic loopy exposition that manages to be endearing the Japanese kaiju movies and grating in American ones.
"I said no cameras!"
The movie effectively asks and answers the question “What would a giant monster attack really be like?” Because of the first-person point-of-view, we are literally with the human characters the whole time. More often than not, in kaiju movies, we are “with” the monster for much of the movie. If not in his point of view, we are at treating him as a character and seeing things more or less from his perspective. Here, we never are seeing things from his perspective, and he is only a force of destruction, which we are unfortunate enough to witness on several occasions.
The monster’s attack on Manhattan is presented as a terrible and shocking event that can’t help but recall the 911 attacks. This is really the first post-911 giant monster movie and the filmmakers exploit these new phobic pressure points to good effect. Despite it’s first-person conceit, this movie has quite a bit in common with the original Japanese Godzilla movie. Both movies were produced in the aftermath of some horrible traumatic national event, in Japan, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both are presented in a serious, realistic fashion. Both cinematic events are confused with the above events.
Yes, this thing is the Cloverfield monster. Well, Hasbro's interpretation.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
The monster in Cloverfield is for me a bit of a let down. He’s not really a cohesive creature but a collection of disparate animal parts that don’t go well together. With his fragile-looking forelimbs and weird bat-like head (which recalls the Ray Harryhousen’s Ymir creature), he’s not particularly tough-looking by monster standards and he looks like he would lose in a fight against Godzilla, Gamera or even the American Zilla. Most importantly, the Cloverfield monster lacks personality in his brief screen time.
MONSTERS PRESENT
The monster, “Clover”
Numerous dog-sized parasites.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
Actually, featured in the trailer, the initial moments of the monsters attack on the city culminating in the rolling head of the Statue of Liberty.
DVD AVAILABILITY
Widely available on DVD and Blu-Ray, although really what is the point of having this movie on Blu-Ray since it was filmed with consumer video?
God sends his vengeance against yuppie hipsters.
THE TRAILER
SEE ALSO
Gojira 1954, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms 1953, Godzilla 1998
TRIVIA
Technically, this is not the first kaiju story to be told in first person. That honor belongs to an episode of Godzilla: The Series, the animated series that serves as the sequel the American Godzilla movie. The show somehow manages to be a lot better than the movie and far more true to the Japanese series of Godzilla movies.
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