The record-breaking grosses scored by “Cloverfield” this weekend are encouraging when it comes to the present status of the horror movie.
Instead of the silly, gruesome superstitions of the many Japanese-derived scare pictures of recent vintage, or the torture porn of the “Saw” and “Hostel” derivatives, the new Paramount release has virtually no gore. Indeed, it landed an unrestricted PG-13 rating.
The movie proves yet again how much more interesting it is to be scared by suggestion rather than by blatant displays of graphic violence. Just as Steven Spielberg got his biggest jolts in “Jaws” when we couldn’t see the shark, “Cloverfield” is scariest when we can’t quite see the monster(s).
The glimpses of local TV newscasters trying to figure out what is happening while it is happening are also very effective.
“Cloverfield” mixes the found-footage format of the 1999 blockbuster “The Blair Witch Project” with elements of the dramatically shaped MTV reality series “The Real World” and “The Hills” into a genuine post-9/11 horror story set in Manhattan as chaos erupts from the arrival of some sort of giant monster.
Producer J.J. Abrams has tapped into the anxiety that kids both inside and outside of the New York metro area must have felt as their parents tried to come to terms with what was going on in Manhattan on that terrible morning seven years ago.
Just as my generation sat through so many 1950s and ’60s horror pictures that derived their power from unspoken nuclear war anxiety, the current teen demographic is being touched in almost subliminal ways by this devilishly clever little film.
In 2001, many people remarked on the way that Manhattan had the feel of a disaster movie on 9/11, but up until now, no fictional filmmaker has used that widespread cultural comment as the basis for a horror movie.
“United 93” and “World Trade Center” were sober attempts to deal with the actual events of 9/11. “Cloverfield” taps into unresolved fears that something bigger and worse might still be in store for Manhattan, so there will be people who find the picture to be an offensive exploitation of continuing terrorist anxiety.
Because our perspective is so limited in the film — we see only what was captured by one videographer at a downtown going away party interrupted by the arrival of some sort of vaguely indicated “creature” — the audience is placed in precisely the same position as the characters in the film.
Kids who compulsively record their own lives with cellphone cameras will find the visual style of the movie to be completely realistic.
“Cloverfield” eventually starts to feel contrived as the characters take unbelievable risks with unbelievable speed (in terms of New York City geography) but the movie delves into real modern day anxieties in a way that no other contemporary horror picture has dared.
