From the Sci-Fi Wire:
Matt Reeves, who directed the monster thriller Cloverfield, told SCI FI Wire that plans for a sequel film have been put on hold until the filmmakers can come up with an idea as interesting as the original.
I didn’t hate Cloverfield, but I did find it disappointing, and I think a sequel (or prequel) is such an unnecessary idea. Which I guess all but guarantees that it will be made.
However, I think it should be said, of the things Cloverfield had going for it — and it had some few things, not too many, but a few — I don’t think interesting ideas were really among them.
I would pay money for a sequel if it featured some important things the original did not, like:
* steady camera work
* a script
* characters I didn’t loathe
* any attempt to explain anything in the movie
* plot
and, most importantly:
* a good look at the fucking monster.
The “characters I didn’t loathe” is, I think, a reasonable request — although I’ve long maintained that you don’t have to like characters or agree with their actions to enjoy a story. As to the rest…well, this wasn’t a movie about plot, any more than The Blair Witch Project was. (Although it’s worth noting that Cloverfield had a script, unlike Blair, which was largely ad-libbed.) This was a movie about visceral, in-the-moment scares. I think Blair Witch handled that considerably better — and luckily doesn’t come with the unfortunate 9/11 connotations/inspiration — but the shaky-cam, lack of explanations, and only half-glimpsed monster are part of the package. In fact, I think one of the best things about the film — and, again, I was disappointed by it too and don’t see the need to ever watch it again — was the monster. Things unseen are much more frightening (at least to me) than things seen. The hockey-mask-clad killer standing in front of you, for instance, isn’t half as scary as the hockey-mask-clad killer who could be anywhere, all around you. Same with the monster. Do you really think seeing the creature up close, seeing the CGI however good or bad, would have been scarier?
I don’t think Cloverfield was very good, and I think a sequel is a very bad idea, but I also think its flaws are different than the ones you cite.
No, I don’t think seeing the monster up close would have been scarier, but it would have been far more interesting. The point of giant-monster-attacking-the-city movies is to see giant monsters attack the city, not to watch yuppies hold interventions in the subway system. Monster movies are spectacle. The old Gamera movies succeed at this better than Cloverfield.
Blair Witch, being more in the ghost story vein, didn’t need visible monsters quite as much as it needed a somewhat coherent explanation — which it was also lacking. But it left enough scattered clues to make the movie interesting after you left.
I recognize I’m treading on genre-pigeonholing territory here, but if you’re going to promise one thing (a monster movie) and deliver something else, that something else better damn well be enough to make me rethink my expectations.
I am honestly surprised that Cloverfield had a script, by the way. Watching it I was thinking “they’re trying to do the Blair Witch improv thing, but they’re not nearly as good at it.” They actually scripted that mess?
Drew Goddard, a writer on Buffy, Angel, Alias and Lost, is credited with the screenplay for Cloverfield. Which isn’t to say some, or a large part, of the movie wasn’t ad-libbed. There are certainly no specific lines that seemed worth repeating to me.
But I think it’s a mistake to go into Cloverfield expecting spectacle, or to go into either it or Blair Witch expecting a coherent explanation. That’s not what those movies are about; an explanation would just undermine the scares. I was interested in the monster, but I also really liked not knowing what it was — the same way I really liked not knowing what happened in Blair Witch. I’ll agree that neither are particularly great stories, but that’s not really what they’re designed to be.
I could dissect all the reasons I think Cloverfield failed while Blair Witch didn’t, but I suspect that would force me to watch the former again, and I don’t have any great desire to do that. (Admittedly, I haven’t revisited Blair Witch much either, although I do own a copy.)
Have you seen The Host, by any chance? There’s a pretty terrific monster movie.
Yeah, I have a copy of that one. I thought it was a little spastic towards the end, but overall pretty decent. Certainly a cut or six above Gamera.