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Tired of the jokes, the French take the Statue of Liberty back, slowwwwly

Cloverfield is an excellent horror movie.

It really works on a number of levels. The acting and dialogue are intelligent and believable; the pacing is gripping and speedy, without overdoing it; the camerawork, with its Blair Witch-like conceit, is very nicely done. Moreover, it is scary, and uses a wide variety of methods to achieve this scariness; indeed, virtually every method in the book, apart, thank Christ, from the something-jumps-out-suddenly method. There’s a scene in the darkness that is viscerally frightening, that hits you in the reptile brain. Then there’s the much-vaunted Statue of Liberty head, which really is marvelously effective, absolutely horrifying in a broad, conceptual sort of way. It is a very enjoyable movie, which succeeds in virtually everything it hopes to accomplish, and it is highly recommended.

What it is not is an especially good giant-monster movie.

Our nation’s gorgeous twentysomethings - imperiled!

I once read the excellent movie Reign of Fire described as something like “the best ever dragon movie without any dragons in it.” An apt description, really, even if it does exaggerate just a bit. But Reign of Fire had easily two or three times as much good footage of its dragons as Cloverfield does of its monster. In fact, you never do get a really good look at the whole creature; you get enough good looks at its various parts to piece it together, but only barely. Moreover, it is an entity without origin or motivation.

Now, there is a reason for all this, and it’s quite a good one: It’s scarier that way. Explanations, and chances to study things, these provide reassurance, and reassurance should be rare to absent in a movie designed to terrify. Cloverfield is a movie about human reaction to disaster, and the unspeakable feelings of hopeless confusion that disaster engenders. That the disaster in the movie happens to be a monster is nearly irrelevant. Only nearly, though – that it is a monster, an unknown quantity, makes it scarier than, say, an earthquake might be. We know what an earthquake is, and that removes just a hair of the threat, at least to the comfortable viewer. That it is a monster of unknown origin does help to take a bit of that comfort away.

Most giant monster movies are, to some degree, about human reaction to disaster. But they also have other themes. Godzilla, as we know, represents the atomic bomb, among other things; King Kong is, again among other things, primordial man. Any monster with an origin, or even an appearance with recognizable features, has a subtext based on those things. By having none of these things, the Cloverfield monster has no real subtext of its own; it is a monster with no theme. One could, were one charitable, say that it has the theme of ‘disaster itself,’ but this is little more specific than ‘fear itself,’ bringing us back to the horror genre, rather than the more allegorical, sci-fi giant monster genre.

Also, let’s not mince words: If you’re going to make a giant monster movie, let’s see some God damned giant monster. Let’s see it. We want to. Come on. Why we want to – well, that is a question too broad for our scope here. Suffice it to say, though, that the creation and examination of monsters has a pedigree that extends to every culture everywhere forever. It’s scarier if we don’t see it, yes. But we’re still allowed to want to see it. And if Cloverfield were a proper giant-monster movie, we would.

Oh my God, did you see that? Ehhh, it probably wouldn’t interest you.

Remember the original Alien? Great film. But not really a science fiction movie; more of a horror movie that makes use of science fiction tropes – quite effectively, in fact. It’s the same with Cloverfield; a horror movie in another genre’s clothing.

Now, it should be reiterated that Cloverfield is an excellent film, regardless of genre. And some may find all this genre-dividing unpalatable, as is their right to do. But part of the purpose of genre in the first place is to indicate what we ought expect. And it is ill-advised that you expect a giant monster movie out of this film. It is, quite simply, not about its monster at all. And it would need to be, to fit in that genre. It has been reported that J. J. Abrams has said he wanted to make this movie because “America doesn’t have a Godzilla.” It still doesn’t.

By the way, they’re already talking about a sequel, and apparently under consideration is the idea of said sequel being the same imaginary event, only filmed by another person or group. If so, could we have the next group be obsessed with following the monster around? Figuring out about it? It probably still won’t be our Godzilla, but we can get a giant monster movie out of this idea yet.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 1:11 am and is filed under Godzilla Project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.