A surprisingly good film

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2008)

I have to admit, this was not a film that I would have seen on my own accord. I hadn't heard of it when my friend invited me to this, and after a bit of research I was put off by two things: firstly that it was a monster film, and that it involves hand-held camera. But in the end this was a surprisingly effective monster flick, up to the same standard as The Host.
Firstly I was not captivated by this movie. The beginning bit in the party was frankly quite irritating. I grew to quickly dislike most people, particularly the guy behind the camera. I think that not much character development was made, nor was it throughout the film. I think I would have preferred to have come in when the action begins, not really knowing who these people were. The core of this film is the action, not the characters.
The action is surprisingly good. The special effects were fantastic, and even in vast New York one feels a certain claustrophobia. The pacing was very good, and the action was nicely quick. It wasn't lingered on, and it wasn't built up to. It was sudden and horrific, making it seem more like the danger could come from anywhere at any time. The danger of the large beast and then the little creatures made the danger feel both epic and personal.
I had heard before this film that we wouldn't see the creature, and that certainly would have disappointed me, I think. I think that the hand-held really made the creature more real, as we only see brief glimpses of it until the very end (which sort of countered the effectiveness of the rest of the movie, to an extent). The fact that we didn't really know what the creature was, or what its intentions were, made the movie far more effective, as one never knew what was going to happen. Nor did the movie fall into that irritating trap of the stranger who knows everything, and comes and goes at different times.
One thing that frustrated me was the going back to the previous tape of the couple. I think I would have liked it better if that was our only knowledge of the characters. I think it was underused as a device, because it really only happened four or five times. I think I would have proffered it if the last scene, and the last video flashback, were our first real insight into who those people were. But such is life.
In the end I thought that this was a terrific monster movie, certainly one of the best I have seen in a long time.