Film review: John Goodman shines in 10 Cloverfield Lane

A claustrophobic return to the Clover-verse.

John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in10 Cloverfield Lane. Michele K Short / Paramount Pictures via AP Photo

10 Cloverfield Lane

Director: Dan Trachtenberg

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr

Four stars

When Cloverfield arrived on the big screen in 2008, almost nothing was known about the J  J Abrams-produced monster film.

No surprises there: from the internet-fuelled conspiracies surrounding TV show Lost to the utter lockdown on spoilers for Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Abrams revels in conjuring up mystery and intrigue.

Even by his standards, however, new film 10 Cloverfield Lane was made under a shroud of ­military-grade secrecy. Even the cast didn't know what they were filming – it was given a decoy title – until shooting was under way. Its very existence was only revealed two months before release.

Abandoning the found-footage style of the previous film, this is an altogether different prospect – more a spin-off than direct sequel.

A chamber drama, a slippery ­psycho-thriller, it plays on fears that many Americans seem to have about being invaded or ­attacked.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as Michelle, a young woman who, after a brief boyfriend-fleeing prologue, wakes up from a car accident to find herself chained up in a cell in an underground bunker. Her creepy captor, Howard (John Goodman), has tended to her wounds – but tells her she cannot leave.

In the hands of a director such as Eli Roth, such a scenario would have descended into a grisly torture/revenge flick. But this film, co-written by Whiplash's Damien Chazelle, plays fast and loose with genre expectations.

When Howard explains that there has been some kind of attack that has left the air contaminated, and that he rescued Michelle, she naturally refuses to believe him. However, a fellow bunker-dweller, genial neighbour Emmett (John Gallagher Jr), seems to corroborate Howard’s story.

To say much more would give away the film’s numerous twists, but debut director Dan Trachtenberg stays in control in these hugely claustrophobic ­bunker-set scenes that form the bulk of the film.

Particular credit goes to Goodman, who hasn't been this unnerving since Barton Fink. Yet there are moments of humour, too, relieving the tension and far removing it from the grim nihilism of other post-apocalyptic survival tales, such as John Hillcoat's The Road or Xavier Gens's The Divide.

At this point, you may be wandering what on Earth all this has to do with Cloverfield, something a CGI-heavy act answers. Sort of.

In truth, that finale doesn't quite live up to the earlier atmospheric scenes, though Winstead is commanding as a heroine in the vein of Alien's Ripley, delivering a performance that should finally put her in the public ­consciousness.

Flipping between horror and sci-fi with ease, this is a film full of breathless, heart-stopping moments, even if the “Clover-verse” framing device never quite convinces.

10 Cloverfield Lane is in cinemas now