Even before its box-office-busting opening weekend in the US, this JJ Abrams-produced ‘film with no name’ had become a monster movie in more senses than one, creating a level of Internet-fed anticipation reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project a few years back. The similarities don’t end there; Cloverfield too is a terrifying ‘MS. Found in a Bottle’, an artfully constructed bit of pseudo-verité (with a no-name cast) masquerading as a found object, a personal testament retrieved from the ashes of a devastated city. (Without giving anything away, the interesting question of who found it is answered in the film’s opening frame; but this only raises further questions about the events we then watch unfolding…)


Starting abruptly, without music or opening titles, the film creates the illusion of being a camcorder video playing out in real time; it begins as a record of a farewell loft-party, introducing us to the group of friends whose lives will shortly be turned upside down, and then – when what appears at first to be an earthquake shakes the shindig – becomes a document of the destruction of Manhattan by an awesomely huge monster: skyscrapers collapse, the Brooklyn Bridge is torn apart, crowds of terrified New Yorkers run in panic through the streets, and the army attempts to combat the hulking menace with all the hardware at its disposal.