Yes, I know...I see a lot of movies. I got some movie passes for Christmas, so I've been using them up before school starts back this week.

Anyway, I went to see Cloverfield last night, and I thought it was pretty damn good. The handheld camera technique was somewhat gimmicky, and it made me a little dizzy and nauseous, but it does help end an air of realism to the film.

There was a lot of speculation about the nature of the actual monster, such as:



That would have been way to scary, and would have earned them an NC-17, so that couldn't have been it.

I liked this LOLcat spoof too:



On a slightly more serious note, there were some actual "leaked" concept images of the monster. I'll put a spoiler warning here in case you don't want to see them or hear about the rest of the movie...

[SPOILER ALERT]


























These was some supposedly "leaked" concept art of the creature:





They might have been decoys, or early versions of the monster. There are some similarities, but not a whole lot.

This was supposedly the most reliable leaked concept image:



So the thing was supposed to be kind of like a mutated whale-crustacean thingee. I thought this looked pretty cool. And the idea that it would have monster crablet parasites that would eat people sounded pretty cool too.

Well, the monster doesn't look like any of these things. I think that last image is cooler than what the actual monster looks like, but oh well. In terms of body proportions, it looks the most like the one with the huge forelimbs and tail. It has those, but it doesn't look that scaly. And its parasites are more insectoid than crab or lobster-like. I think the actual monster was probably made more ambigious in terms of its origins in order to make it more mysterious. You don't ever really find out if this thing is from the ocean depths, outer space, a genetic experiment gone bad, or an alternate dimension. You just know it's wreaking havoc.

As I was watching, I wondered if they'd give a little tacked on debriefing on the tape, explaining the aftermath. None of that. You're completely left in the dark. I guess this is the leave open the possibility of a sequel, and also to leave people guessing. It doesn't give me hope as a fan of Lost, made by the same people. I think that series is going to end with way more questions that answers.

In terms of narrative, it's an interesting issue. In general it's a bad rule to leave your audience in the dark, to not explain things. But mystery, if done well, can create a driving curiosity that carries people through a story. I tend to like a good resolution, though. Otherwise it feels like a cop-out.

Ah well. At least in Cloverfield, we pretty much knew the fate of all the characters we were introduced to. They all bit the big one.

Anyway, I'd recommend it. Just don't go if you tend to get car sick.