Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1784 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-06-09
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 81 minutes

Amazon.co.uk

One of the first things a viewer notices about Cloverfield is that it doesn't play by ordinary storytelling rules, making this intriguing horror film as much a novelty as an event. Told from the vertiginous point-of-view of a camcorder-wielding group of friends, Cloverfield begins like a television soap opera about young Manhattanites coping with changes in their personal lives. Rob (Michael Stahl-David) is leaving New York to take an executive job at a company in Japan. At his goodbye party in a crowded loft, Rob’s brother Jason (Mike Vogel) hands a camcorder to best friend Hud (T.J. Miller), who proceeds to tape the proceedings over old footage of Rob’s ex-girlfriend, Beth (Odette Yustman)--images shot during happy times in their ex-relationship. Naturally, Beth shows up at the party with a new beau, bumming Rob out completely. Just before one's eyes glaze over from all this heartbreaking stuff (captured by Hud, who's something of a doofus, in laughably shaky camerawork), the unexpected happens: New York is suddenly under attack from a Godzilla-like monster stomping through midtown and destroying everything and everybody in sight. Rob and company hit the streets, but rather than run with other evacuees, they head toward the center of the storm so that Rob can rescue an injured Beth. There are casualties along the way, but the journey into fear is fascinating and immediate if emotionally remote--a consequence of seeing these proceedings through the singular, subjective perspective of a camcorder and of a story that intentionally leaves major questions unanswered: Who or what is this monster? Where did it come from? The lack of a backstory, and spare views of the marauding creature, are clever ways by producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves to keep an audience focused exclusively on what’s on the screen. But it also makes Cloverfield curiously uninvolving. Ultimately, Cloverfield, with its spectacular effects brilliantly woven into a home-video look, is a celebration of infinite possibilities in this age of accessible, digital media. -Tom Keogh

Special Features

Customer Reviews

Marmite
My two cents. I feel quite protective of this movie. Rant alert!

There are a lot of people who didn't like this film because they got sick from the handicam work. I can understand this - I'd be a bit cross if I paid for my ticket and then watched a jerky movie that made me feel sick. Fair enough. I was lucky, I didn't feel sick.

However, there are also a lot of people who are rubbishing this film for a lack of character development or plot subtlety. I find this baffling. Er... guess what? This isn't a Merchant Ivory film. It's a monster movie. The poster with the decapitated Statue of Liberty covered in claw marks was a bit of a clue. I don't recall any criticism of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" based on its lack of rampaging monsters, now why was that? Ah yes, it was because "Four Weddings" was a romcom, not a visceral monster movie. There aren't any finely detailed and lovingly developed character relationships in Cloverfield because about 50% of the screentime the characters are screaming, or running, and the other 50% they are screaming AND running. I also object to the people saying "they're just whiney New Yorkers, I wanted to see them die". What??? What a lovely perspective! They're not that "whiney" - in fact they're pretty damn brave (I think I'd probably have a bit of a moan if a monster was inconsiderate enought to destroy London when I was in the middle of it and kill all my friends) and I loved the conceit of the cutting between the live "Cloverfield" footage and the historical footage on the camera of the couple on their one perfect day out together - it certainly tugged at my heartstrings, and offered a great contrast with the carnage in the present.

Then there are people who are just saying that this film is "bad". That makes me a bit cross. There are plenty of "bad" movies - try "Norbert" for example. That is a "bad" movie - cynical, poorly written, racist, poorly performed by has-been "stars" turning up for the paycheck, a McMovie aimed at the thickest, easiest-pleased lowest common denominator. "Cloverfield" is about as far from that sort of filmmaking as it is possible to get. For a mainstream movie, this is experimental film making - it's brave, it's unusual, it was launched at an unusual time for movies, it was marketed unusually and intelligently, it's an extremely carefully-constructed movie, a real labour of love (look out for the falling satellite in the very final shot!). It's short - really bucking the trend. It's obviously a much more important film than the inevitable indistinguishable three hour oh-so-worthy Oscar nomination vehicles with the same old stars going through the same old motions.

I'm happy to pin my colours to the mast: I'd rate Cloverfield as borderline genius and an important piece of filmmaking in that it pushes (arguably creating, certainly extending) a novel kind of genre. A zeitgeisty, "reality through the moviecam/mobile phone camera" style that captures the kind of images that really make the news nowadays. There will be many more movies like this, and so there should be.

I and my wife came out of this movie shaking. She - a lover of all things romcom and girly trash movies - announced after a minute or so of stunned silence that it was the best film she'd ever seen.

I don't know about that. But I can say this: Cloverfield is the second-best EXPERIENCE that I've ever had at the movies. And the best was Star Wars, when I was five. So my standards were a little simpler then.

Until we have virtuality, smellyvision and all the other interactive stuff that the future no doubt holds, this is the nearest we'll get to being right in the middle of a good old "monster crushes city" experience. It's exactly like being caught with a crowd of random strangers who are trapped and stunned right in the eye of the storm. Who cares if they're idiots? Who cares if they are in shock and do irrational things? It's totally irrelevant. What's relevant is that there's a gigantic monster somewhere out of camera shot that could come into camera shot at any second, and it wants to kill you.

The little creatures are straight rip-offs of the Starship Troopers bugs. This doesn't matter, because they're still really bloody scarey. The "result of the bite" sequence is unexpected, sudden, brutal and shocking. Wonderful, as punchy as the Godfather of such moments, the John Hurt Alien chestbursting moment. The Cloverfield monster itself is absolutely the best Godzilla style megamonster I've ever seen in a movie. Really, really, really grotesque and frightening.

It's a movie about a 500 foot high indestructible monster rampaging through Manhattan. It's clearly silly. But it achieves movie nirvana - it totally suspends disbelief. It feels real. It's traumatic. It's horrifying.

Absolutely freaking fantastic film and anyone who rubbishes it otherwise than because of subjective problems with motion sickness has a very strange notion of what is, or isn't, good cinema. That or they went in hoping for Hugh Grant to pop up and give someone a nice romantic kiss in the rain.

Watch the final scene very closely.
There are certainly mixed reviews on here about this film.

I was quite keen to see it but had apprehention of it being a bit of a let in that - i heard questions had not been answered and i wondered if you ever actually saw the monster.

Well thankfully i wasnt let down by this film. The first 20 mins are pretty boring obviously coz they are settign the scene for the emotional content and how they all know each other - then all of a sudden the stuff hits the fan and were in shaky screaming, what the ... is going on terrtiory.

I certainly didn't like the shaky camera angles, quite often having to pause and take a break, but that all adds to what the film is trying to portray - the confusion, terror, disorientation and questions left unanswered of what the experience might be like living through a disastor like this or the 911 attacks which it draws obvious parrallels too.

The special effects were pretty good, and the action is non stop throghout - yes i know its stupid that they go back to save someone who is probably 99% dead already but get past that and it a good rollercoaster of a movie. the monster is a bit freaky looking and you dont see it straight away which is good - building up the tension. I was fearing that you wouldnt actually see it but you do get some good close ups of its size and its amazing watching it bash NY city in.

There are lots of tense moments involving the safety of the group we follow and the film doesn't hold back on the gruesomeness of some of the characters' endings . It doesn't have the hollywood happy ending either which sends it home how awful it must be for real people caught in disasters like this. Especially in light of the air france crash recently.

For those of you who dislike the fact that there is no definate answer answer of where this monster came from - watch the final scene very closely, the happy couple are on the ferris wheel at the carnival on the beach. When the camera pans over the carnival below them - look on the right hand side of the screen or play it in slow motion.

It does answer your question after all!

If you can handle the shaky camera, annoying comments form the camera man and the usual 'dont go that way' decisions by the characters this is quite a good action romp that doesnt end up happy and doesn't hold back on the gruesome nature of such a disastor.

Original idea, great film
When I saw this in the cinema, I was blown away by it. You were left with more questions after the film than at the start, which you'd imagine would be annoying, but there was something that I loved about that. The camcorder, of course, made this film most effective. They describe it as 'Godzilla meets Blair Witch', and I can safely say that if you like both of those two films, you'll love this one. The fact that it had a cast list that you wouldn't have heard of helped it to be successful; the idea of this film was to get a first-person view of normal civilians reacting to a crisis, so it would be strange to feature Tom Cruise and George Clooney. You can see that the director has covered every corner to squeeze as much as possible out of this film to make it realistic (apart from the giant monster terrorising New York city).

If I was rating this film straight after exiting the cinema, I would have given it a hands-down 5 stars. The one thing that is holding me back now that I own it, is the fact that it is not nearly as entertaining on the second viewing as it is on the first. The most thrilling element of Cloverfield is that you are watching it without knowing much, so you don't know what's gonna happen next. It's part of the novelty of using a camcorder, that you have no idea what is going to suddenly appear in front of the camera. I think that a film should be thrilling and entertaining every time you watch it for it to be a real classic.

Apart from that, though, a very clever and well made film.