I blame it all on Independence Day really. Like the other 90 million plus viewers of Super Bowl XXX I saw the trailer for Independence Day and was amazed at those alien ships blowing up the White House and how real it all looked. However, this movie is the sole demarcation point of my relationship with Hollywood. And I am not underestimating the previous sentence; I was wholly conscious of this while I was at the theater watching Independence Day. And the reason is this: I thought Independence Day was the shittiest movie I had ever seen. To this day, I absolutely loathe that movie. I would rather watch a trifecta of The English Patient, Pretty Woman, and any random movie about the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo uninterrupted than watch that Will Smith and Bill Pullman movie vehicle again.
Here’s why I hated it: because it looked so tantalizing that it should have been awesome. Before this point my unofficial rule of thumb for action and/or special effects-driven movies was: even if the story was lame it could be saved by “cool stuff.” And with Independence Day the “cool stuff” was buildings and landmarks being blown in the most original way ever to arrive on the silver screen. However… the story was so bad and so ridiculous that no amount of “cool stuff” could save it. To this day, I am weary of almost every movie that cost $100 million to make because I don’t want to be subjected to another Independence Day. This movie was the equivalent of me walking in on my parents having sex. There, I said it.
Which leads me to Cloverfield—a movie in which I was leery of seeing for two reasons: 1) because of everything that I just mentioned and 2) because of the reviews suggesting that it was like The Blair Witch Project. (A third reason was if the ending was really bad I’d have doubts about what producer J.J. Abrams has in store for my beloved Lost.) Let me start off by saying this: you may hate The Blair Witch Project with as much voracity as I hate Independence Day. And that is fine. The problem with The Blair Witch Project is that so many people saw after its mainstream release. Everyone seems to forget that in July of 1999 The Blair Witch was only released in a handful of theaters (for example, Piper’s Alley was, I believe, the only theater in Illinois to show it) and it had an accompanying documentary on the Sci-Fi Channel and it was assumed that this was a legitimate movie with no actors. My wife and I saw The Blair Witch the second weekend it was released and it was the most terrifying movie I have ever seen and everyone in Piper’s Alley was completely silent and a collective wreck. Everyone thought we were watching a movie in which the ending was real people ultimately dying.
Now, if you already know it’s fake there is no helping you with watching The Blair Witch. It’s too late; the gig is up and you will never be scared and everything comes off as corny. Unless you are friends with The Haitian from Heroes, who can extract your ability to remember that The Blair Witch Project is fake, you will never understand how scary that movie was. What does this have to do with Cloverfield?
The effects used on Cloverfield are Blair Witch-like (homemade footage from a camera being used as a device to follow characters) and are truly first-rate as almost all of the footage that involves the monster is spectacular. The problem, though, is that The Blair Witch had a story line and Cloverfield has to sacrifice almost all story line because the movie is only about one really static block of time (The Blair Witch takes place over a few days). I ultimately recommend Cloverfield because it’s a movie that has to been seen a theater; no 72″ TV and $7,000 stereo system can do this movie justice. The monster scenes really are amazing considering how the movie is shot. But know going into it that the writing and the story line is weak but it’s unavoidable given the nature of the core story. (The movie was written by Drew Goddard and my hope is that people don’t hold this movie against him as he did pretty much everything he could given the story. Goddard wrote two of the best Buffy episodes in “Conversations With Dead People” and “Selfless,” as well “Dirty Girls” which introduced one of the creepiest TV villains ever in Caleb. He has legitimate talent.)
That said, watching Cloverfield, your mind cannot help but think of The Blair Witch Project but what I realized is that no matter what your budget is no one can ever make another Blair Witch Project again, especially given how the Internet age of information keeps rapidly procreating. Someone will come up with another Independence Day but The Blair Witch Project still exists on its own plane, something that can never be properly duplicated again. This is all the more remarkable considering that not even J.J. Abrams and his resources didn’t even come close. If you saw The Blair Witch Project before its cover was blown, you know what I’m talking about. And when you are watching Cloverfield it will hit you again as well—”I’ve seen this before.” The fact that The Blair Witch Project will always be a reference point (regardless if it’s being used by someone who hated it) will always be a testament to its ground-breaking nature and it was nice to be reminded of it again while a group of motley fools try to navigate through Manhattan without getting in the monster’s way.
Does Cloverfield have enough “cool stuff” to overcome its deficiencies? I think so, especially seeing it on the big screen. But for me the fact that Bill Pullman is nowhere to be found is a good thing, and for you it may be that the movie is devoid of an uncomfortable tight shot of a girl crying in front of the camera.
It’s ultimately all about perception. And that is something that a movie studio can rarely disrupt, “cool stuff” or not.