I really enjoyed Cloverfield, the 2008 monster movie in which New York City is decimated.  The same people are behind 10 Cloverfield Lane, a different kind of alien invasion movie distantly related, sort of, to Cloverfield.  While it isn’t bad, the new film just cannot compare to the first one.

Dan Trachtenberg’s film takes place mostly in the bomb shelter where paranoid Howard (John Goodman) has brought an injured young woman, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and a young man, Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.).  The three of them try to adjust to the idea that there is nothing safe above ground any more; Michelle is the hardest to convince because she was unconscious after a car accident when she was brought to the shelter.  Distrust mounts as evidence reveals the fate of other people and Howard’s possible insanity.

As a “people trapped in an underground shelter” movie, it’s not bad.  It doesn’t have the scope or creepiness of Chosen Survivors (1974), but it is effective conveying the claustrophobia and hopelessness of the situation.  But that is only part of the movie.  Anyone who knows anything about Cloverfield is simply waiting for the monster to arrive — and that doesn’t occur until the final ten minutes or so.  That’s a lot of waiting. Michelle is unconvinced that anything out of the ordinary is going on outside, but we know better.  And then, when all hell finally breaks loose, she’s like a female Rambo!

Ultimately this movie fails to achieve its goals; the last half hour is a mess in many ways, and not particularly satisfying.  Gaps in logic are problematic and communication is ignored.  There was a real chance, I think, to make a scary good movie here, but the filmmakers chose to explore the demons within rather than the demons outside the shelter.  A bit of both would have been a better mix, with more menace and fright than this film delivers.  ☆ ☆.  28 March 2016.