Two young adults are held prisoners underground while something strange attacks “10 Cloverfield Lane”. Structured in the same world as 2008’s “Cloverfield”, Director Dan Trachtenberg crafts a psychological terror for a new chapter in this horrifying story. A young woman named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up after a terrible accident, remembering very little. She wakes up to the terrifying reality and discovery that she’s locked in a cellar with a doomsday prepper (John Goodman), and a quietly, injured young man (John Gallagher Jr). The former insists that he saved her life and that the world outside is uninhabitable following an apocalyptic catastrophe that has offered very little answers. For a while, this feels like the ideal situation compared to what lies above. But with each discovery of her captor’s true motivations, she learns that things aren’t quite what they seem. Uncertain what to believe, Michelle soon determines that she must escape at any cost, regardless of the consequences. “10 Cloverfield Lane” is rated PG-13 for frightening sequences of threat with some violence, and brief language.

“10 Cloverfield Lane” is its own monster, and the pun is totally intended. For anyone going into this film seeking a big budget monster action flick, they will be sorely disappointed. That’s not the reaction I garnered however, as this movie is even better than its 2008 original film. The movie’s tone and screenplay express that of a psychological thriller that plays on the fears of strangers, as well as claustrophobic surroundings within those fears. It makes for a real 1-2 punch that supplies a nice blend of comedic awkwardness and tense unpredictability. On the latter, the movie didn’t completely shock me. The outline could certainly be made out from where the movie was headed, but it did always keep me guessing. One interesting aspect came in the realization that all of the memorable scenes from the trailers were presented within the first forty minutes of the movie. So where does it go from there? Well, the film becomes a paranoia film, grilled on the edges with some genuine chilling terror to boot. The monster in this movie is human, and that is perhaps the scariest aspect of all.

Then, just when you feel you have the movie figured out, Trachtenberg flips everything upside down and changes all of the rules that he made for himself in the previous two acts. The movie’s ending was a little disappointing for me, frankly just because it feels like two different movies blended into one bloated presentation that didn’t always mix well together. I would’ve been fine with this girl being trapped in the bomb shelter and trying to fight her way out, but the movie adds yet another line of adversity in her way, and it all just came off as a bit ridiculous when you stop to sort everything out. That ending felt very much like fan service for the people who were anticipating this film as a sequel to everything that was great about “Cloverfield”, but I honestly could’ve done without it. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there are some very questionable CGI designs and execution during this part of the film that couldn’t do anything but make the audience laugh unintentionally. Think 1990’s Stephen King’s “The Langoliers”.

What the movie lacks in jumbled screenplay, it more than makes up for in technical aspects of communicating the tense atmosphere that these characters are placed in. This movie was made for only 15 million dollars, and that’s incredible when you think of the kinds of things they were able to accomplish on such a limited budget, times 90% of the movie taking place in a bomb shelter. The camera work is superb. A real triumph of intimate character angles communicating just how there really is nowhere to run or hide in this world. The camera work is also smart enough to communicate to the audience when something should be taken as twisted comedy. A fine example of this is when some scenes run long past the quirky dialogue just dropped and the camera is left on. Trachtenberg wants the audience to soak in every little bit of the humor used as a diversion from the awkwardness of these three strangers living together. These scenes would be nothing however without the captivating tones of composer Bear McCreary. Bear translates the panic with shrieking tones that even brought out a few jump scares in me for their surprising entrance into a scene. These two things establish such a feeling of dread for this girl who is waking up to a completely different world.

On the subject of that girl, Mary Elizabeth Winstead oozes the real potential of a leading lady in survival films. She’s part Ripley, part Katniss Everdeen with her ability to constantly think on her feet while the problem around her is constantly changing. What is great about this kind of setup is that we learn things about these characters one layer at a time, so when we are first introduced to them, they are nothing more than strangers to us. This is kind of genius because we are learning about their characters (Just like Winstead) as the movie goes on. Once again however, John Goodman steals the movie. He is having the time of his life as this man who is either incredibly genius or incredibly insane. There’s a certain charming childlike innocence to some of his reactions early on in the film. But don’t ever for a second forget that he is in charge, because he lets Winstead and Gallagher know this behind every turn. Goodman has the ability to do some of the silliest things, but still manages to generally creep you out with that one staring gaze. A real actors actor of undeniable range.

Overall, “10 Cloverfield Lane” should’ve ended ten minutes earlier, but its a surprisingly intriguing roller coaster of Hitchcock proportions inside this tiny room. This series has finally found a comfortable median that can bring out the most in terrifying realities and characters that we actually care about. This film was kept a secret till two months ago, and that secret pays off greatly in the idea that the less you know the better.

7/10