'Cloverfield' wonderfully monstrous on DVD
Director Matt Reeves delivered one heck of a terror-inducing thriller in January with "Cloverfield," his unique handheld video-camera account (think "Blair Witch Project") of a monster's invasion of New York City.
A group of twentysomethings (Michael Stahl-David, T.J. Miller, Jessica Lucas and Lizzy Caplan) are on the run from the beast, while the full force of the U.S. military tries to defeat it. The creature is only glimpsed here and there (until one unforgettable scene), reminding us that sometimes the scariest films are not the goriest.
On the DVD, now out, the transfer is pristine and the bonus features are a nice mix of behind-the-scenes docs and alternate endings (none of which is as potent as the original).
The film is the brainchild of producer J.J. Abrams ("Lost," "Alias"), who talked to the Sun-Times about the life and times of a good horror film.
Q. The film is in part an homage to those great "Godzilla" movies. Were you a fan of the giant lizard from way back?
A. I always loved those movies growing up. I was sort of raised on the giant lizard. What's cool about godzilla is that you relate to the creature, which in many of the films was the hero or heroine of the movie. There was something about the technique of those movies that was so much fun. They had a unique tone to them.
Q. What qualities did you want your creature to have?
A. We wanted to make him unique, given how much these types of films have been done and how many of these types of creatures there have been. We wanted to make sure that his actions were believable given the preposterous nature of the storyline.
Q. Why did you opt for the hand-held video-camera perspective?
A. I wanted to make sure that you really believed what was happening, that things were really real and you were in the moment with the characters. I ended up combining two Japanese techniques with the types of cameras we use, hand-held and Steadicam. I wanted the film to be relevant. How do you make a monster movie feel relevant? You do it in a way that's unique and spins the genre [on its ear] a little.
Q. Can you talk about the "money shot" in the film, when Hud (T.J. Miller) finally gets a good look at the monster?
A. Originally, we were just going to have him spin around and the monster instantly grab him and eat him. But then I thought, no, we need to hold that moment just for a beat or two, and that really ratcheted up the terror he was feeling. But it's also, in a weird sense, a kind of fun and kind of weird ride all the way through the film. Even a moment like that gets a bit of a laugh like "Look at that!"
Q. How did you feel about critics who said you used the same technique as "Blair Witch"?
A. We were never trying to hide that fact. It's a monster movie. The whole monster-movie genre is familiar in a lot of ways. Video cameras are so ubiquitous now. They're on our phones, we have them at the ready. We felt like whether it was the horrors of 9/11, or a kid on a dirt bike, or the Mentos in the soda, we all watch these clips [on the Internet] and it's increasingly done by some dude who uploads it from his phone or his tiny video camera and suddenly there are 4 million hits. "Blair Witch" wasn't the first film to use this style, and "Cloverfield" won't be the last.
