Cloverfield

It looks like producer J. J. Abrams (the man behind Lost and Alias) took a few cues from legendary horror-meister Val Lewton. In Cloverfield, Abrams’s Godzilla-like monster wreaks havoc on New York City—except he does so at night, and we can’t see a damn thing except shadows and fleeting images of the beast as things blow apart, casting flickers of light on the carnage. Abrams understands, as did Lewton when he made The Curse of the Cat People some sixty-five years earlier, that imagination is the best special effect—and it’s cheap. The web is already alive with anticipation for this one. If the trailer is any indication of Cloverfield’s thrill-a-minute qualities, this should be one helluva popcorn flick.