Last night, my wife was working late, and while I should’ve been cartooning, I got caught up watching Cloverfield. Yes, it was the first time I’d seen it, and yes I had been meaning to watch it for some time now.
After viewing this movie, I’m pretty upset with myself for not seeing it sooner. I really liked it. It’s not an all-time great, and I don’t know how I’ll feel about it six months from now, but on a Tuesday night watching FX, this movie really caught my attention.
I’m still trying to pinpoint what I liked about it so much. I’m not really into “creature feature” kinds of movies. That is probably because most of those movies are over the top attempts at horror films that just come off cheesy.
I think the best thing about Cloverfield is that the movie only gave you a little bit at a time. Each time you were presented with something that you wanted to see, it was hidden behind a building or something, and I felt myself physically trying to peer around whatever it was to try to get a better view. Of course these gradual payoffs kept getting better and better to the end of the movie.
The other thing I really liked was the appearance that the whole thing was filmed by a handheld camera. Granted I was not watching on a huge theater screen, so I didn’t experience any queasiness like some movie-goers. The thing is, the movie could’ve been hindered by this filming technique a lot, but the filmmakers did a great job of using the handheld camera to once again only show us a little at a time as the movie built up.
Now I will say that I liked the movie so much that I watched it again tonight with my wife. On second viewing, I saw a couple of little nitpicks since I knew what was coming, but all in all, it still held up. I found myself studying this movie more for it’s creative qualities. Well, I guess as a guy who does a comic strip based on movies, I do that a lot, but this time I was in awe, rather than disappointed.
At any rate, Cloverfield was a super fun movie, and definitely the best Monster Movie I’ve seen in my adult life. It’s not too scary, not too gory, and not too cheesy. Just the right amount of fun and suspense for a few hours of your life.