Hairy ape King Kong stomped his way through New York City 90 years ago. Overgrown lizard Godzilla first breathed fire on Tokyo way back in 1954. The beleaguered behemoth bounding through the urban landscape is hardly a new film concept, and it's one that's been used successfully for decades. But 15 years ago this month, a different kind of film shook things up and helped redefine the monster movie genre. In 2008, producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves brought Cloverfield to the big screen. On the surface, its plot sounded formulaic and routine - a group of friends in Manhattan flee an attack on the city by a giant beast. But writer Drew Goddard, known for putting a unique spin on otherwise standard adventure fare, kicked things up a few notches in this story of a leviathan on the loose. By focusing on the people involved in the chaos and not just the creature causing the chaos, Goddard created a horror movie with a human element that propelled the narrative and kept audiences on the edge of their seats.
A Story Told from The Characters' Perspective, Not the Monster's
With most films that involve a giant mutated varmint going on a city-wide rampage, the monster is somehow provoked by mankind, either through nuclear bomb tests, secret scientific expeditions into uncharted territory, or other nefarious activities that unleash the dormant critter. In King Kong, for instance, the big guy is content to live his life relatively peacefully behind the towering bamboo walls of Skull Island, as long as the human inhabitants offer him an appetizing young lass every now and then. It's only when a meddlesome movie director and his crew disrupt the ape's routine and cart him back to the United States as a sideshow attraction that Kong loses it and takes out his fury on Manhattan. In Godzilla, it's a series of atomic blasts in the Pacific Ocean near Japan that disturb the spiked dragon's underwater slumber and send him on his destructive path. Once the fiend's anger is released, the audience watches the proceedings largely from the monster's perspective as he indiscriminately topples towers and squashes unfortunate passersby. Cloverfield abandons that narrative and focuses instead on the human characters (though eagle-eyed viewers will catch the brief homage to the "awakening of the sleeping giant" theme in the last minute of the film).
A Twist on the "Found Footage" Concept
Based on the film's first 20 minutes, audiences not aware that Cloverfield is a horror thriller might think they're about to watch a millennial romance/angst drama. A surprise going away party is being thrown in a Manhattan apartment for a young man named Rob (Michael Stahl-David) who's about to take a job in Japan (a wink to the Godzilla franchise). Among the revelers is Rob's ex-girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas), Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel), Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), an ill-at-ease wallflower who knows virtually no one in the room, and Rob's best friend Hud (T.J. Miller), who's videotaping the proceedings. The entire movie, in fact, is seen from the perspective of Hud's camcorder, making Cloverfield a film that straddles both the "monster" and "found footage" movie genres. Another horror offering, The Blair Witch Project, employed this same framing device eight years earlier, but Cloverfield uses it primarily to develop the film's characters and add an emotional layer to the action.
Director Reeves employs Hud's camera as the chief narrative device, setting up the backstories of the party goers and driving the events to come. Rob fights with Lily, who storms off in a huff. Jason admonishes his brother for his unfair treatment of Lily. Hud, clearly taken with new girl Marlena, follows her like a puppy looking for a pat on the head as she attempts to avert his attention. All of this makes viewers care about the people they're watching long before these folks become engaged in the fight of their lives against the gnarly savage to come. By the time the first blast is heard outside Rob's apartment, viewers are fully invested in the characters, and that's the genius behind Cloverfield. Although a monster is about to trounce through New York, the audience is more interested in finding out if all the friends at the party are going to make it to the end of the movie than they are in the monster itself.
A Going Away Party Becomes a Rescue Mission
To help keep focus on the film's protagonists, Reeves first shows the revelers witnessing an explosion in the distant Manhattan skyline, conjuring up images of terrorism and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. The city is under siege, and the concern is for the safety of the people at the party. It's not until the group ventures into the streets that it becomes clear a monster is afoot - with very large feet - in the Big Apple. Wisely, Reeves initially gives audiences only a fleeting glimpse of the beast, ensuring the humans remain the centerpiece of the action.
With that masterful shot of the head of the Statue of Liberty being catapulted into the air and landing on the street, viewers get their first hint that what's happening is much more than an act of terrorism, but they're not yet sure what the movie's characters are facing. To keep the action going, screenwriter Goddard cleverly adds a plot accelerator. Rob gets a call on his mobile phone from Lily (who had already left the party in an angry huff). She's trapped across town in her apartment, so the group decides to brave the streets through which the big, bad creature is clomping, in order to rescue her. Cloverfield is now a film about a rescue mission, with the monster serving not as the center of the film, but the huge obstacle the group must overcome in order to complete their task.
As the friends make their way through the city, viewers see more and more of the creature, a nightmarish underworld life form that somewhat resembles a giant hairless cat with especially protracted limbs and shark-like teeth. Viewed from Hud's camcorder, which lurches and pitches and goes in and out of focus, shots of the beast remain fleeting. There are, in fact, few lingering looks at the towering monster throughout the film, likely a conscious decision by Reeves to keep the movie's spotlight on the small group of friends. Whenever Hud's camera does catch a peek at the beast, his camcorder quickly returns to shots of his friends, and this gives the audience the feeling that they're huddled right there with the group as they try to make it out alive.
The Movie Never Loses its Focus on the Human Element
To keep Cloverfield from venturing into Escape from New York territory, Goddard and Reeves ratchet up the complications in the friends' journey with another impediment - massive ghoulish parasites that are shed from the monster's body which feed on humans. These vicious squealing scroungers add tension and make audiences root even more for the safe delivery of the movie's characters. Unfortunately, things don't go so well for everyone, because once the parasites nibble on the skin, more little parasites invade their human hosts, causing the humans' bodies to burst open, Alien-style. Just as viewers are at peak emotional investment in the movie's characters, the parasites wreak their havoc, and while the monster continues to tear the city apart, audiences are mourning the mounting human losses. The group (or what's left of it) finally reaches Lily, but the happy ending viewers have been rooting for isn't meant to be. Hud's camera captures a final anguishing moment between Rob and Lily, followed by previously recorded footage of the two enjoying a romantic day at Coney Island. Nestled in Rob's arms, Lily looks into the camera and says, "I had a good day." Static follows, and the "lost footage" ends, delivering a surprisingly emotional wallop, especially for a monster movie.
It seems that was the goal of Cloverfield all along - to tell a personal tale about the struggle for survival, with the 250-foot-tall beast being merely a metaphor for adversity. And unlike King Kong, Godzilla, Them!, or any number of similar films where audiences see the monster ultimately taken down and destroyed, the fate of the beast in Cloverfield is never revealed. There is, in fact, a strong suggestion that the monster couldn't be stopped. Even as the horrifying beast and the killer entities it sheds bring civilization to its knees, the real story is the human one. The film begins with friends coming together and ends similarly (albeit sadly), and that's what makes Cloverfield a unique and outstanding entry in the monster movie genre.
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