Scared the S___ out of me!

Rating: 10/10 (13 August 2008)

The filmmakers effect of course is that as you watch the handy cam footage, you experience what the protagonists experience.
The core of the story is the first bit of video with "Rob" and "Beth" - Two new, non-familiar non-Hollywood faces, faces you will meet at any party like the party "Hud" was filming. Well, not like that particular party.
But it takes an invasion by some unknown thing to tell the tale. It also takes the side-story about a Rave-Gone-Bad, which started to go bad the moment "Hud" got the camera. Personally, I would have killed "Hud" at the start of the film, but we needed Hud to lug the Camera around.
This film uses the Hitchcock-ian method of filming with almost NO CUTS as in "Rope" and "Under Capricorn" - But with the added Handy-Cam kind of footage- This brings the film into an incredible level of first-person experience... Because WE become Hud as Hud films the events of the evening- So we see what Hud sees, and also what the camera sees.
At first viewing, we have no initial idea what is happening, no warning, and we are not sure until we see a huge TAIL. And we have not a clue as to why the heads of Statues of Liberties are being flung as if they were crumpled aluminum foil projectiles, and we are teased like that all through the film, a lot of things we see are not really explained. Matt Reeves builds the picture, step by step, and to great effect.
But what it comes down to... THIS is probably the GREATEST Monster Movie made in 25 years, not since the Original Alien- As Alien had the Chest Burster scene, this film has...
Never mind what it has. I won't tell you, you have to SEE it- New York City has NEVER been Tokyo-Trashed like THIS... And while Tokyo has Godzilla, New York has Clover!