The less said about 10 Cloverfield Lane, the better. While that might sound like a bad review, it’s not.
Producer J.J Abrams made this film under wraps, with the added pressure of producing a winning Star Wars sequel. A spiritual successor to his 2008 surprise hit Cloverfield made under intense secrecy, that not even key members of the cast knew full details of the production or its connection to Abrams’ original, until the day of the trailer’s release.
10 Cloverfield Lane emerged from a lauded spec script originally titled The Cellar, a bare-bones screenplay which the producers knew could be knocked up on the cheap. Ultimately adapted as a sister-piece to Abram’s hit, the film involves a bunker, characters that you can count on one hand, ongoing guesswork as to some of their motives and an uncertain, potentially dangerous world outside.
Filmed in chronological order and in a short space of time, 10 Cloverfield Lane is an exemplary example of character-dense bottle-horror, featuring at once the most frightening and funny game of Articulate you will ever see.
Reminiscent of a time when theatres put up signs asking patrons not to talk about the movie, the only thing more shocking for fans than seeing the word ‘Cloverfield’ in the new trailer, attached to the release of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi on January 14, was the realisation, moments later, that they would get to see it in cinemas on March 11.
Forgoing a long lead-in to trade on the calibre of its predecessor and creative team, the early release, a dramatic departure from form in an age where projects are announced years in advance and multiple trailers gradually reveal more about a film than we want to know meant that there would be minimal speculation as to plot or opportunities for spoilers.
A true shocker; the less known about 10 Cloverfield Lane before seeing it, and the less said here, the better.
10 Cloverfield Lane is in cinemas now.
Glen Falkenstein on The Big Smoke
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