I’m not a blood-and-guts kind of viewer, but I love a good horror flick, the kind that keeps the viewer constantly off balance with neat little plot twists and hair-raising anticipation of terror. Skillful pacing is essential to the horror genre; we need to be confused, soothed, startled, thrown off course, cajoled, fooled, and soothed some more until we are terrorized by the tantalizing anticipation of the monstrously unthinkable event — even if that event never occurs. Maybe especially if it never occurs.
Too many horror films rely on blood and guts to elicit screams, but a brilliant director can deliver the shivers within a PG-13 rating. In 10 Cloverfield Lane, first-time director Dan Trachtenberg does all of this brilliantly.
As the film opens, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is packing hastily, tossing belongings into a bag and grabbing necessities with a deft hand. The scene is filmed as a series of close, panicky shots that create suspense even where there is none; we learn that she has simply decided to leave her fiancé Ben (Bradley Cooper). The last thing we see in the apartment is a close up of her keys and her engagement ring, and then she drives away into the night. Misdirection. In a horror film, it gets you every time.
We need to be confused, soothed, startled, thrown off course, cajoled, fooled, and soothed some more until we are terrorized by the tantalizing anticipation of the monstrously unthinkable event.
It happens again at a dark, secluded filling station. Is someone lurking in the shadows? Is someone following her? I won’t tell. But the tension heightens merely from the anticipation that someone lurking in the shadows. Somehow (I won’t tell you that either) Michelle wakes up in a strange room with an IV needle in her arm, a bloody scrape on her forehead, a brace supporting her injured knee — and a chain attaching her leg to the wall. It’s Misery all over again, we think, only Michelle is the “writer,” and Howard (John Goodman) is the good Samaritan arriving with a plate of scrambled eggs, a fresh bandage, and a petulant, “You need to show me some appreciation!” à la Kathy Bates. Sometimes borrowed creepiness is even creepier.
Howard tells Michelle that Armageddon has occurred, but they are safely secured in his underground survival bunker. He explains that he rescued her from an accident just before the blast happened. But then, why is she chained to the wall? And why does he keep locking the door? And why won’t he let her go to the bathroom without him in the room?
Michelle isn’t the only young visitor in this strange menagerie. Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.) — yes, Emmett! Could any name be spookier in a horror movie? — sports a broken arm and a scraggly beard that suggests he may have been down here for a while — or it could just be a fashion statement. We don’t know. But Emmett seems to believe Howard’s story.
But then, why is she chained to the wall? And why does he keep locking the door?
The set is closed and claustrophobic, just three people locked in a bunker playing a mutual game of cat-and-mouse as they wait out the fallout up above, while also waiting out each other’s mistrust down below. Adding to the creepiness is the cheeriness of Howard’s bunker, with its 1950s furniture in the living area, pine cabinets in the kitchen area, fake sunflowers on the table, jukebox in the corner, and board games on the shelf. The vivid colors create a bizarre fairytale effect, almost like the gingerbread house that trapped Hansel and Gretel by baiting them with food.
If you’re feeling claustrophobic from watching too many weeks of that creepy, freaky bully suffering from a perennially bad hair day, roaring epithets at his uninvited critics, then turn off the television, leave the campaign news behind, and go see John Goodman as a creepy, freaky bully suffering from a perennially bad hair day roaring epithets at his unhappy guests. 10 Cloverfield Lane is a winner.
