10 Cloverfield Lane

This one somehow fell off my radar, probably because I thought it was some sort of sequel to that pretty awful “found footage” movie, Cloverfield. And it is …but only sort of. The producer and director insist it has elements of that movie, but I don’t see it. Cloverfield was a sprawling, incoherent, impenetrable mess, and this is a little gem. It was made for only $15,000,000. (Only! That was the budget for Millennium, which at the time was one of the most expensive movies ever made in Canada.) These days they call that a “micro-budget” movie!

There are only four actors, and one of them is only there for about a minute. The other three are John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher, Jr. They are together in a doomsday bunker that Goodman has built. Mary was brought there while unconscious, and so is very suspicious of Goodman’s claim that something apocalyptic has happened above ground. He doesn’t know if it is an invasion by the Russians, whether biological, chemical, or nuclear, or by the “Martians.” But Gallagher seems to confirm it, and later she sees something that tells her that something is wrong up there. She is told they can’t go out on the surface because the air is contaminated. But she is only halfway convinced. It is clear that Goodman is bugfuck crazy … but crazy about what?

It gets very tense, all very nicely done. Then she reaches the surface, as we always have known she would, and she finds … I won’t tell you if you don’t already know. But it worked for me. It may remind you some of last year’s Room, in its claustrophobia, though the bunker is extremely well-equipped, and quite comfortable. Unless you want to leave …