April 2: 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016 -- Dan Trachtenberg)

★★★

10 Cloverfield Lane is a predictable genre movie but for the fact that it fuses two genres that
we never see together.  It starts as an effective psychological thriller that stays locked in the perspective of the kidnapped Michelle.  This perspective limits what we know, and it leaves us guessing about the nature of her kidnapper, Howard.  Through Michelle, we see his menace and learn things about him that cause us to doubt his sanity and motivation; at the same time, we learn things about him that surprisingly turn out to be true.  Dan Trachtenberg’s direction maintains this perspective, and in doing so, builds and sustains suspense, while John Goodman’s effective performance sells that character, never giving away more than Michelle could pick up.  The horror mounts as Michelle tries to resist Howard.

After the gory standoff between kidnapper and victim that is part of this genre, 10 Cloverfield Lane becomes Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and makes several typical genre gestures there, too.  Michelle sees aliens from a distance and is also threatened up close when she’s in hiding. She finally she heads off to help in the battle against the invaders.  It’s familiar stuff from this type of sci-fi.

The originality in 10 Cloverfield Lane comes from its fusing the psychological killer thriller with the sci fi alien invasion genre, but Trachtenberg doesn’t bring much else to this project.  He hews so closely to the genre conventions that we ultimately have little investment in the characters or the outcome since we know the genre games and their rules.  The film has a clever idea (what if there really ARE Martians?) that it explores effectively, but it takes no risks in either of the genres it uses.  In keeping so close to convention, it doesn’t engage or move us, and it brings no particularly new insights to viewers.