10 Cloverfield Lane

Dan Trachtenberg’s first feature runs on one question: is the man in the bunker a protector or a captor? The film withholds the answer a long time and turns every domestic moment, the dinner table, the jigsaw evening, into evidence. Most of the running time is three people talking in one enclosed space, so anyone who wants the threat outside waits behind a closed door. The second source of power is John Goodman. He gives the character none of the signalling that would mark him as the villain, and stays warm past the point where the audience has decided against him. That is why the scenes stay tense rather than becoming a show. The final stretch leaves the bunker and changes genre, which is the split point, so know it is coming. It began as a very low budget independent script by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken called The Cellar. Damien Chazelle rewrote it and was to direct before Whiplash got funded. The Cloverfield connection was added during production and called a blood relationship; neither the characters nor the creature from the first film appear. Filming happened in New Orleans on one set, in order. Good if scarcity of information is your idea of thriller material. Not for a viewer expecting the same creature and shooting style.