10 Clover­field Lane

Back in 2008, Matt Reeves’ New York-set Clover­field cap­tured the intense pan­ic and chaos that comes with unex­pect­ed, large-scale destruc­tion. For the most part it was a whirl­wind of unre­lent­ing vio­lence. But in its qui­eter moments, the film took time to reflect on the loss of human life, all seen through the lens of a hand-held cam­era. Though pack­aged with­in the same fran­chise, Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Clover­field Lane has lit­tle in com­mon with its pre­de­ces­sor. It is instead a nerve-wrack­ing and wry stand-alone thriller that mix­es ele­ments of sci-fi and hor­ror while evok­ing a state of extreme paranoia.

We meet Michelle (Mary Eliz­a­beth Win­stead) flee­ing in a state of pan­ic after an argu­ment with her boyfriend. She packs her things, leaves her engage­ment ring on the table and high-tails it out of the city, only to be met with fur­ther upset when she is involved in a high-speed col­li­sion which leaves her blood­ied and bro­ken. She wakes up in an under­ground bunker, a drip attached to her arm, not know­ing whether those on the oth­er side of the door are friend or foe.

An impos­ing and capri­cious pres­ence lurks around the cor­ner in the form of Howard (John Good­man, on fine form) a farmer and ex-Navy man unhealth­ily obsessed with con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries. He is joined by a young guy named Emmett (John Gal­lagher Jr) who claims he begged to be let in due to a chem­i­cal attack that has appar­ent­ly wiped out the the human race. The ques­tion remains: what is the real threat, and where are the monsters?

The mys­te­ri­ous ambi­ence per­sists through­out as our feel­ings towards the three leads fluc­tu­ate con­stant­ly. In a sat­is­fy­ing moment of sym­me­try, Tra­cht­en­berg opens his film in sim­i­lar style to Reeves’ orig­i­nal by draw­ing his cam­era away from the out­side world to focus on the inte­ri­or of Michelle’s apart­ment. He set­tles on pho­tographs and pos­ses­sions until lin­ger­ing on the abject fear present in Michelle’s face. And fear is what Tra­cht­en­berg plays with like a mas­ter pup­peteer. The screen­play was ini­tial­ly writ­ten by new­com­ers Josh Camp­bell and Matthew Stueck­en and lat­er worked on by Whiplash direc­tor Damien Chazelle, and pos­sess­es a flair for human dra­ma and a knack for switch­ing between ter­ri­fy­ing bursts of anger and qui­et composure.

10 Clover­field Lane main­tains its sense of unease by focus­ing on how we manip­u­late pow­er for per­son­al gain, with peo­ple becom­ing mere pawns in a bat­tle for psy­cho­log­i­cal suprema­cy. Howard con­stant­ly reminds Michelle of the fact that he saved her life and she should be grate­ful for sanc­tu­ary he has pro­vid­ed. She’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the tacky pin­cers of oppres­sion slow­ly clos­ing. The film only allows its char­ac­ters time to relax in short bursts. A hap­py fam­i­ly-type mon­tage accom­pa­nied by ​’60s pop music that sug­gests his­to­ry is once again repeat­ing itself. It’s a ter­ri­fy­ing and suf­fo­cat­ing place to be.