Terror in the Peripheries: why "Cloverfield" is the best monster movie in recent memory.
"Cloverfield"
Rating: 8/10 stars.
*WARNING, MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD*
What's the quickest way to remove all terror from an otherwise scary movie?
Centering.
Horror movies tend to place its characters in the middle of everything. The monster chases after them, they see their friends die, they kill the monster, and they live happily ever after or get tormented for another day. In the midst of this "centering," the characters also get to know a lot -- this always includes the monster's origin and his motivations.
For instance: Godzilla was the product of nuclear wastes, and Norman Bates had psychological problems from his domineering mother. This knowledge inevitably leads to methods by which the monster could be defeated. In "Signs," for instance, the crop circles hinted at the aliens' fear of water.
Just as a good joke gets ruined when someone explains the punchline, horror movies inevitably lose their mystique when its monsters' origins and motivations are explained. The monsters are, ironically, humanized.
"Cloverfield" does not explain anything. All its main characters stay in the periphery. The protagonist does not even seek to kill the monster -- that's the army's job, after all. His primary motivation is simply to find his girl, who was stuck inside her 37th-floor apartment, in the monster's path of destruction. Neither do the main characters find out anything -- they do not know where the monster came from and its motivation, if it has any.
Neither does the camera provide succor. Usually, the camera is a neutral observer that jumps from scene to scene, impervious to the destruction film-monsters cause. The camera is an invincible and omniscient being in, yet also out of the scene. The viewer therefore associates with this point of view and watches the monster wreak havoc with no empathy.
Yet, "Cloverfield" is entirely shot by a handheld camera. All of the shots have a natural motivation -- curiosity, terror, panic. The very presence of the camera is fortuitous. The main character, after all, was celebrating his going-away party before leaving for Japan the next day. The camera had some reason to be there.
In the same way, the camera only catches passing glimpses of the monster. The monster is not even shown in its entirety, the way the camera usually showcases its monster from all angles. Here, the monster is shown in bits and pieces, according to the requisite courage it took for the camera-holder to point the device at the monster's wake of destruction.
The film ends with the audience being just as confused as the characters are. And this, all in all, is the power of "Cloverfield." It understands that what is unknown is what scares us the most.