Thrilling, unsettling, exciting - with a twist at the end!

Rating: 10/10 (3 April 2016)

Seeing really good movies is rare these days. Lots of remakes, some of them wholly unjustified, and lots of really bad movies, too. So when something that exceeds the original comes along as a sort-of sequel, it's a pleasure.
10 Cloverfield Lane was a total surprise. I liked the original Cloverfield a lot, even if the actual pictures of aliens attacking were very distant and disappointing, yet the action was great and so was the edginess, the hand-held camera, the priceless shot of Lady Liberty's head rolling down the avenue in New York.
How to follow that and make it even better? 10 Cloverfield Lane. The basic premise is simple - a woman is run off the road by a large pick up after a scary encounter at an eerily dark gas station in the middle of nowhere. We don't know much about her except that she has just run away from her husband/boyfriend/partner and is just driving to escape. And yet, she picks up the mobile when he calls, which is ultimately her undoing.
Sideswiped into a deep ravine. Next, she awakens chained to a wall, attached to a medical drip, in a bleak cellar, not understanding where she is, blood-matted hair and on a mattress on the ground.
Enter John Goodman in one of his best roles ever - he's the scary "dungeon master," who insists he rescued her after the car wreck and brought her to his lair to nurse her back to health... although he doesn't tell her of his ulterior and ultimate motives, which are not hard to guess...
But the pot thickens with the introduction of another inhabitant of Goodman's lair... one who tells our main protagonist that the world outside is contaminated, possibly destroyed. Goodman compounds the tale, and when a CB radio is seen in what turns out to be an incredibly well-stocked underground nuclear fallout shelter they are all sharing, she never tries to contact the outside world on it after being told by Goodman that he's tried and it is all to no avail.
The plot develops with some immensely interesting personality traits that are just plain weird and eerie. As soon as you settle into believing that Goodman's character is a complete pervert, a murderer and more, along comes her escape and the connection to the original Cloverfield, but this time we get to see the aliens up close. And ugly they are, too.
Enough said, go see it. You won't be sorry. And the door's been left open for a sequel, which I do hope gets made and I look forward to.