100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 101: 10 Cloverfield Lane

Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Genre: Drama/ Thriller/ Science Fiction
Runtime: 103 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr., Bradley Cooper, Suzanne Cryer

Description: After getting in a car accident, a woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is held in a shelter with two men (John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr.), who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack.

Review: If there is one filmmaker that knows how to keep a secret, it’s J.J. Abrams. Look at “Cloverfield” which came out in 2008. Eight years later there is “10 Cloverfield Lane”, a movie no one saw coming. Only two months before the movie was released, the mysterious trailer appeared on the internet. Three people are seeking shelter in an underground room. More you don’t want to know before seeing the film.
Dan Trachtenberg is the director and this is his directorial debut. He mixes claustrophobic suspense with a little bit of humor and a story that gets you curious. The shelter is filled with canned food, outdated boardgames, old videotapes, a jukebox and magazines.
Of the three actors, who are all very good, its John Goodman that steals the show. And the scenes in the shelter are all great. It’s afterwords, when one of the characters leaves the shelter, when it gets a little less surprising. Because the title already suggests that the film is set in the same universe as “Cloverfield”, you already kinda know what’s going on outside the shelter. This sort of spoils it all a little bit. That doesn’t make this movie bad, because it’s ana excellent film. Very different from “Cloverfield”, because it’s more of a psychological thriller mostly set in one room.
“10 Cloverfield Lane” is not as surprising as the trailer let us think. It is a first class suspense film, with humor and great performances by the three leads.

Rating: 4/ 5