GeekOut on Cloverfield (2008)

There are simply more topics that I would like to write about than there is time on this Earth. To that end, I’ve created GeekOut!, a column where I can express my love of something for a month, before moving on to the next topic. This month: kaiju, the Japanese giant monster movie genre.

The last official Godzilla film was 2004′s Godzilla: Final Wars, released on the original film’s 50th anniversary. At that point, Toho Studios declared that they were going to retire the character for a minimum of 10 years. A mere four years later Matt Reeves, Drew Goddard and J.J. Abrams gave us Cloverfield, which serves as a both a fitting homage and a coda to the original kaiju series.

The beats closely resemble those of the original 1954 Gojira, down to some amazingly small details (Does anyone remember the scene early in Gojira, before we saw the monster, when they found the giant footprint along with a giant trilobite? In this film, we have the more threatening giant ticks). Rather than an allegory for the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we’re forced to flash back to September 11, 2001, complete with the destruction of a notable New York landmark. As in the original film, the focus is on the human beings caught up in the destruction and the monster is essentially just a macguffin to move the action along.

I love this film for its synthesis of classic kaiju tropes and modern horror techniques. Some critics have bagged on the film for being an old fashioned monster flick in modern drag; I see that as a strength, a solid framework to build upon. Others hated the found footage trope, which was already becoming overused, and especially despised (or were, sympathetically, unable to sit through) the shaky-cam. I thought that those techniques served to underscore the ground-level, personal drama and brought a degree of realism to offset the fantastic concept of a monster 25 stories tall. I love the emphasis on the love story, a man trying to locate and rescue the woman he loves, rather than just cool effects and monsters. The monster is icing; the actors are the cake. I love that the monster is truly unappealing, not something you’d want to own an action figure of. In these ways, it both respect and inverts kaiju standards, making Cloverfield something original and special.

The ending, of course, is far less hopeful than the ending of Gojira. The Japanese were rebuilding, and had a resolve that after surviving a horrible tragedy they could face anything and win. At the time Cloverfield was released, a little over seven years after 911, we were still living under the specter of terrorism and today we are still operating within a culture of fear. Both films reflect the times and cultures in which they were made.

After its release there was talk of a possible sequel, which thus far has failed to materialize. I hope it never does; some films are best left to stand alone. There was also a lot of internet speculation on what the monster really was and where it came from. An escaped genetic experiment? A monster from the deep somehow disturbed by man and drawn to the surface? An alien that splashed down in the ocean? Frankly, I don’t want to know. The entire point of the film, what makes it truly scary, is that like a terrorist attack you have no idea what’s going on and can only begin to piece together answers after the fact.

Cloverfield, not coincidentally, was released four years ago today.

Buy Cloverfield at Amazon.

GeekOut! is an irregular column about things that I geek out about. You can read more articles in the series here, and subscribe to a GeekOut!-only RSS feed here.