Cloverfield

Absolutely. Amazing.

That could be it; that could be all I need to say, and you would go see it, right? But then the post wouldn't be that interesting. Alright; it all began last summer when the teaser was released before Transformers, right? That's right. The shaky hand-camera party, the explosion and the Statue of Liberty's head rolling down the street. You had no idea what was happening. Then they insult us by not even giving a name of the movie.

Insulting? Hardly. You know it's from J. J. Abrams and you know the release date. Perfect teaser. And then the questions came; you know the standard ones. I was more concerned about the camerawork: was the whole movie going to be hand-held camera? I was really hoping so. Was it Godzilla? God, I hope not! J. J. wouldn't stoop to that level. But it was definitely a monster movie, and that got me excited enough as it was.

But not enough to really hold my excitement, because there wasn't a plethora of goods revealed about the movie. You knew when it was coming out, the style of movie, and that was it. I avoided everything else, which was basically just speculation.

Then lo and behold, the movie comes out; we go see it. I'm blown away; I can't stop thinking of it afterwards and I can feel my body fidgeting with excitement, even after the credits roll. That doesn't normally happen. The last time I was really excited about a movie was before and during Spider-Man. Not so much during and afterwards, a la Cloverfield. This was a first. So the movie gets a 10/10. We don't need to wait till the end of this post to find that out.

We can, however, talk about the movie itself. Before entering the theatre there were many pink letter-sized papers floating about warning that you may get sick while watching this movie! Utterly fantastic, really! The thought didn't even occur to me before and the idea of having people being sick during the movie, in the theatre, made me giddy. If you were going to endure somebody throwing up in your theatre, this was the movie to do it at. Not at Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ugh. That was a terrible experience.

But alas, nobody was sick during the screening; I guess that was ok. Because the movie had me in it's grip from the get-go. The entire party scene, with it's introductions to the characters felt genuine, was pretty funny and mildly interesting. Then the craziness begins and doesn't really let up. The movie is short and sweet. The way the movie is shot, it's impossible not to feel as though you're there. You are in the movie: you see what you're being shown. You look in awe, you run, and you fall and you get back up again. I can't even get upset about the last part of the movie - although predictable - it kept it real.

The monster is terrifying, as are the little monsters that come off the big monster (how genius). But what really gets me is how hopeless the situation is. I can go on and on about this and it's the feeling I get while watching zombie movies: this could happen and just might happen.