constantly changing, consistently enthralling

Rating: 8/10 (7 April 2016)

My boyfriend and I saw this on a limb, $5 Tuesday and all, and we didn't have a lot of expectations.
First of all, I usually consider myself pretty good at guessing the outcomes of horror and thriller movies, but this one was different. Six times in the movie there were BIG plot twists, ones that made me turn to my boy friend and silently mouth "What the cussss?"
Things I liked about the movie:
The acting was great. With only 5 or 6 characters, the acting had to be good in order for it to work, and the actors delivered.
The costuming was cool. With Michelle wearing Megan's clothes, as soon as she found out that the girl in the picture wasn't Megan, she went straight back to wearing her clothes that she wore in the crash.
It was intense. I am not an easily frightened person, but with everything going on, it got me worked up. But with the intensity, there was very well placed lulls. Sometimes in thrillers there can be too many jumps and it's not enjoyable, but this movie had just the right amount.
It wasn't "found footage." The original Cloverfield was a good movie, it was intense and entertaining and a cool concept, but with the way it was filmed it prevented any character development or detailed story telling, so it wasn't a GREAT movie.
Things I didn't like:
The ending. I know that this is a Cloverfield movie, so of course there has to be aliens to some degree, but up until the actual sight of the alien ship, this movie was a psychological thriller, which I loved. The whole time you're wondering if Howard is crazy or not, and it turns out he is, just not in the way you originally thought. Having the aliens come in at the end was mashing two different threats and genres together (alien threat and Howard) which was kind of hard for me. Switching villains in the last 15 minutes is generally avoided when making movies. I think that if this wasn't a "Cloverfield" movie, and just a normal movie, it would've been awesome if the whole "air being infected" thing was just one big show orchestrated by Howard to keep Michelle in the bunker with him, but I realize that would have made the woman smashing her head against the door not part of the movie, and that was the best scene in my opinion. But, considering that they HAD to include aliens, I am happy with the way the movie ended.
Now I want to come back to the plot twists.
Plot twist one: The woman throwing herself against the door with the corroding face. Up until that point you thought that Howard was crazy and was just keeping Michelle hostage, but then you see that he's right, something is going on outside the bunker.
Plot twist two: Michelle accepts that the outside world is contaminated, and life goes on "as normal" in the bunker until she has to fix the air filter, where she finds Megan's message scratched into the hatch. Suddenly your safe feeling of Howard being a savior is turned to Howard being a murderer.
Plot twist three: Michelle shows Emmet the earring and picture and Emmet says "That isn't Megan." Now not only is Howard a murderer, but an added layer of crazy for being an alleged kidnapper of a young girl and having her wear he daughter's clothes.
Plot twist four: As Emmet and Michelle construct their hazmat suit, Howard finds their tools and confronts them, shooting Emmet in the head.
Plot twist five: Michelle escapes and makes it out of the bunker, where she sees birds flying over head. She takes her mask off, and the air is not poisoned. So Howard was wrong.
Plot Twist six: As Michelle is trying to get the car started she sees a UFO. That means that Howard was wrong, but also right, it was an alien attack (note that when the lady was trying to get in the bunker, she said "IT only touched me for a second." So it makes sense that the air isn't infected, but whatever touched her is.)
There it is, not one, not two, but SIX plot twists. Usually a story can only handle so many twists before the viewer gets confused and loses interest, but 10 Cloverfield Lane didn't have that problem. Every 15 minutes something changed, it kept you on the edge of your seat and it was SO well done. Bravo to the writers and directors.
Overall this was just a great movie that had you constantly second guessing, jumping, and trying not to spill your large diet coke. I read somewhere that JJ Abrams wants to make a movie connecting the original Cloverfield to this one and I hope that he does. I would not mind a Cloverfield franchise going on, and I usually don't love alien movies. But lets be honest, if anyone should do alien movies, it's JJ.
So that's my 2 cents on 10 Cloverfield Lane. Everyone that enjoys thrillers should see this movie, especially on $5 Tuesday. I'm probably going to go see it again next week.