10 Cloverfield Lane **** (2016, John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr) – Movie Review

I do love a horror movie that delivers. I’ve been looking for one for ages and ages – and, finally, this is it! None of your, oh that dripping water might be scary, those woods over there might be creepy, is that a witch?, what’s that behind the door?, but an actual chiller with constant chills,

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead} suffers a car smash and wakes up injured and chained to the wall in an underground bunker. She soon  meets the unpredictably scary man who is holding her there, Howard (John Goodman), who tells her the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack.

The resourceful Michelle manages to get hold of her cell phone, but, do you know what?, it doesn’t work underground! It turns out there’s another man in the shelter, Emmett (John Gallagher Jr). Michelle and Emmett hatch a plot to escape, making a makeshift gas mask. It turns out that Michelle is endlessly resourceful – she’s going to have to be if he’s going to survive to the sequel.

It’s a very good set-up and it’s brilliantly realised by writers Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken, who manage to keep the suspense, fear factor, shocks and sheer outrageous surprise going right up to the very end. The story basically has to have one of only two possible endings, but, incredibly, they find another, thanks to adding Cloverfield into the Misery-style mix.

Winstead is excellent in what should be the star role, but Goodman is deservedly top billed, quite brilliant as the villain (or is he?), and it’s great that he has again role again. It would be easy to mess this up, but he’s as impressive as Kathy Bates in Misery – and that’s Oscar-winning impressive.

In his director debut, Dan Trachtenberg handles it stylish with max tension, and it just never stops coming at you, with the help of a memorable score by Bear McCreary. (At least I remembered it all the way as I was singing it walking along Leicester Square. Yes that was me!) I rarely mention film editors, but Stefan Grube’s work here should be honoured – it’s a huge help to the scary ride.

The woman next to me was grabbing her face, arms and legs and anything else she though might relieve her fears. She just couldn’t bear it! That’s a big tribute to the movie. It manages a few dark laughs along the way, too. Goodman wasn’t in TV comedy for so many years without having a natural funny bone. And that only makes him even scarier here.

It’s produced by J J Abrams, who has revived another moribund franchise. Satisfying though the ending is, it carefully sets up a sequel, which, with the great box office for this one, can’t be far off.

Trachtenberg was the former co-host of popular Internet vidcast GeekDrome.com and is the current co-host of the popular weekly Internet video broadcast The Totally Rad Show.

Bear McCreary is a graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music and was one of group of protégés of the film composer Elmer Bernstein.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/