Cloverfield: Chaos City

The typical “Monster attacks city and traps the eye candy” film gets knocked into next Tuesday, or worse, next Wednesday by Cloverfield with style! Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole new genre is started out under the name “Cloverfield-esque”. From what I can recall, not once do you see the monster in its full form, its always hiding behind the sky scrapers of Manhattan before knocking them down to their foundations.

The camera angle lets you really see through the eyes of man, looking at guns, explosions and girls rather than where he’s running, and not to mention an overload of the stomach churning violence and gore which can make the biggest horror fanatics turn a slight shade of green. The shakey camera angle shakes the mind and lands you in the endangered streets of Manhattan, causing you to scream simultaneously with the cast. Expectations for were small, but so was the revealed facts of the film.

The trailer was short, snappy and tempting like your boyfriends fit friend. The flickering images of screaming faces of fear and buildings falling down like a game of jenga thrilled the viewers, and almost caused Google to combust due to the hundreds of questions excited fans had to find answers for. A line from the trailer “people’ll wanna know how it went down” practically was practically reading the thoughts of eager viewers, but this wasn’t the only question as the trailer never gave the game away but teased with the imagination of the population. Even before seeing the film, people agreed this was going to be another hit sensation from Lost creator JJ Abrahams.

The opening to this movie starts with a series of black slides with your basic, and boring, white writing on them. Not exactly the first thing you want to see after you’ve prepared yourself to face the gore-fest and thrill ride that is made out to be Cloverfield. Whilst more text appears and you contemplate chucking popcorn at the tall dude in front, you stop mid-throw, your eyes fixated on the screen. The words “Formally known as central park” throws the viewers into a whole new level of frustration. The film has barely started and you’re already thinking “What does it mean by formally?” and looking up at the screen, eager for an answer.

After the black screen, we’re thrown into a leaving bash that appeared to have been struck by the party pooper, and introduced to the characters we’ll be with on this rollercoaster journey of a film. As the party rolls on, we find out main man Rob is planning on leaving to Japan, and leaving newly found love-interest Beth behind. Yet something bad always gets worse, and the two love birds have a heated argument before Beth storms off home. As Rob is turning to a big girls blouse and possibly ruining his street-cred for life, he is stopped as the apartment building is struck by a magnificent force.

The party soon becomes a memorable one to date, and for all the wrong reasons. A possible earthquake leads to a possible terrorist attack, identical to the 9/11 attack, and once patriotic heads literally start flying, people soon realise this is nothing like anyone has seen, or will ever see again. As people leg it from the scene they’re followed by the sea’s alternative to Frankenstein’s monster, which is running, or its equivalent, between the buildings like a life-size pacman, and Manhattan is its maze. Audiences will be scared, perplex or even laughing at the creature, with its long spindly legs flickering in and out of vision.

The monster has caused much debate, some have said it’s a sea creature gone large, and some say it’s a Arachnophobics worst nightmare. But its hard to be sure, as all I can remember is that its legs is lacking some serious muscle for a scary, havoc-reeking, town-tearing monster. The films seems to mostly focus on the destruction caused by the monster rather than itself. The direct camera view at one point shows how nasty this monster is, and could easily eat Godzilla, King Kong and The Incredible Hulk for breakfast, with room for a bowl of coco-pops afterwards.

I’d pay good money for the DVD of this clichéd yet catchy movie, it really does give every other horror movie in its genre a run for its money. I would recommend it to the eager horror movie fans, as this is definitely not the perfect film for the faint hearted. This movie should be a first choice rental for a sleepover, but one destined for little sleeping. So what you waiting for? Watch this movie, otherwise you’re practically committing social suicide!