What's in the box?

The masterful '10 Cloverfield Lane' is a different kind of sequel

J.J. Abrams has built a career on the concept of the “mystery box,” his philosophy of storytelling that’s essentially a belief in the magic and wonder of the movie theater. Abrams is a showman who wants nothing more than to surprise and delight his audience, and the mystery box is both a statement of intent and a practical narrative tool that relies heavily on misdirection, especially in the marketing of a film. Sometimes it works beautifully (the sly misdirection of the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” trailer) and sometimes it’s a disaster (the handling of Khan in “Star Trek Into Darkness”).

The mystery box was arguably used to best effect with the trailer for “Cloverfield,” the unexpectedly riveting—and for some, nauseating—2008 found-footage kaiju film, produced by Abrams and directed by Matt Reeves (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”). The film had very little pre-marketing hype and the trailer offered no context and no title: just one provocative shot of the Statue of Liberty’s severed head flying across lower Manhattan.

“10 Cloverfield Lane,” directed by Dan Trachtenberg and again produced by Abrams, is something of a spiritual sequel to “Cloverfield,” though it is its own monster. Shot in near-total secrecy, its first trailer—which, again, barely hints at the story—was only released a month and a half ago, with zero pre-release hype.

The film opens on Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as she frantically packs a suitcase and leaves her apartment, driving into southern Louisiana (first mystery box: why is she leaving in such a hurry?). The radio gives news of a freak power outage in her wake.

Suffering a near-fatal car accident, Michelle awakens in an underground bunker owned by Howard (John Goodman), an ex-military survivalist who’s been waiting for the shit to hit the fan. Apparently it has, in the form of a lethal terrorist strike that, according to Howard, killed “everyone.” A little creepy but seemingly noble, not unlike Tim Robbin’s Harlan Ogilvy in Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” Howard magnanimously offers to wait it out for a year (maybe more) with Michelle and Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), Howard’s neighbor who found shelter with him during the onset of the attack.

I’ll leave the rest to the movie. The savvy inclusion of “Cloverfield” in the title invites your imagination to work on connecting the dots between this story and the original film, a smart, compelling writing trick in a script (by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken and Damien Chazelle) that masterfully plays against audience expectations.  

Director Trachtenberg milks the tight screenplay for every bit of its suspense and mystery, resulting in a stunning feature debut.  He trades the original’s found footage conceit and frenetic shaky-cam for classical filmmaking and gorgeous formalist compositions. The pace has slowed, focusing on the human drama and allowing us to savor the actors’ performances.

Winstead and Gallagher manage natural, charming performances, but it’s Goodman as Howard who sucks up much of the air onscreen as the unstable, weirdly well-meaning doomsday prepper. Whether or not the Academy remembers him in a year, Goodman is unequivocally great. I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy, which is another thing the film gamely plays against.

I wish I could tear into all the spoilery (and super cool) stuff. But that will have to wait for drinks after you’ve seen it, which you should. “10 Cloverfield Lane” doesn’t need the benefit of lowered expectations to prove a very worthy successor to one the most underrated monster movies of the last decade. Dan Trachtenberg should have no problem getting work from now on.

Rawr.

For more from Joe, read his reviews of "Anasthesia" and "Freaks of Nature."