10 Cloverfield Lane

***10 Cloverfield Lane*** is a 2016 American science fiction horror thriller film directed by Dan Trachtenberg. It was theatrically released in the United States on March 11, 2016.

## Plot

In March 2016, after an argument with her fiancé Ben, Michelle hurriedly packs a suitcase, leaves behind a diamond ring, and departs New Orleans, Louisiana. While she is driving through rural Louisiana at night, Ben telephones, begging her to return. The news reports of blackouts in several major cities. Suddenly, her car is struck, flipping off the road.

Michelle awakens in a concrete room. She is chained to a wall and has an injured leg. A man named Howard enters and unchains her. She later unsuccessfully ambushes him, and he explains that there has been a massive attack, perhaps by Russians or Martians, and he had found her wreck and saved her life by bringing her to his underground bunker. He tells a doubtful Michelle that they cannot leave for one or two years because the air outside is poisoned and everyone outside is dead.

Howard takes Michelle on a tour of the well-stocked bunker he built, which also houses Emmett. Through a viewport, Howard shows her his two decayed pigs outside as evidence of the fallout, but she also sees Howard's truck, and regains the memory of it forcing her off the road. She privately relays this to Emmett, who dismisses it, saying he came to the bunker voluntarily after seeing the attack happen.

During their first dinner together, Howard shows little tolerance for Emmett and flashes of jealousy and rage. Michelle antagonizes him and steals his keys, but just before she opens the outer door, a woman covered with lesions appears, screaming to be let inside. Horrified, Michelle retreats. Howard confesses he accidentally struck Michelle's car while in a panic to get to the bunker. She uses her fashion design skills to stitch the cut she caused on his forehead, and Howard opens up about his daughter.

The trio begins to adapt to life underground. The air ventilation system fails after something loud passes overhead, and Howard sends Michelle through a small duct to turn it back on. In the mechanical room, she finds a padlocked skylight with "HELP" scratched on the inside and an earring she had seen in a picture Howard showed her of his daughter. She shares this with Emmett, who recognizes the girl in the picture as a local girl who had gone missing two years earlier. They decide to seek help and Michelle begins to fashion a makeshift hazmat suit so one of them can venture outside.

Howard finds some of the hidden tools Michelle and Emmett are using for their plan and threatens to immerse them both in perchloric acid. Emmett takes responsibility, claiming he was building a weapon to use to get Howard's gun and impress Michelle. Howard accepts Emmett's apology before shooting him in the head, telling a shocked Michelle that now they can finally be a family of two. While Howard cleans up, Michelle works to finish the suit. He discovers the suit, but she flees and is able to upend the barrel of acid onto him, which disfigures him and starts a fire. She dons the suit and narrowly escapes outside. When she sees birds overhead, she removes her gas mask. But she then observes an alien biomechanical craft floating in the distance. When the bunker explodes, the craft turns in her direction and she is stalked by a quadrepedal creature. Michelle shelters in Howard's truck from the creature and from the green gas the craft emits. The craft's tentacles draw the truck toward its mouth, but Michelle finds materials for a Molotov cocktail and destroys it.

Michelle drives off. A radio broadcast says there has been some success in the fight against the invaders and instructs survivors to seek safety in Baton Rouge, but it also requests the help of anyone with medical or combat training in Houston. Michelle heads for Houston while a larger alien craft is revealed by lightning.

## Cast

**Mary Elizabeth Winstead** as Michelle

**John Goodman** as Howard Stambler

**John Gallagher Jr.** as Emmett DeWitt