Autopsy Report: Theories on Cloverfield (INCLUDES SPOILERS)
by Tom Burns

Although reviews for Cloverfield have started to appear online, it's not stopping us monster freaks who want to wait until 1-18-08 for the official goods. No, we haven't seen Cloverfield, but it's fun to theorize on what fans might be able to expect come opening day. If you don't want to catch up to speed on what we know to this point, TURN BACK NOW!

The Western world does a lot of things well - cheeseburgers, pop music, rampant militarism - but you really have to admit that the art of making monster movies is a talent that the East has almost completely locked up. OK, the U.S. has the Monster Squad staples like Dracula, Wolfman, and Frankenstein (all of whom, allegedly, have nards), but we're talking about capital "M" Monsters - men-in-suits, 50-foot behemoths, and real-life Kaiju Big Battel between giant thunder lizards in the streets of downtown Tokyo. While the East has produced countless monster movies (most recently, Korea's beyond fantastic The Host), Godzilla - chairman of the board, king of all monsters - remains the genre's biggest icon and, interestingly enough, the best example of how much the West just really doesn't understand the monster biz. Case in point: Roland Emmerich's 1998 craptastic "Godzilla Takes Manhattan", a soulless Hollywood re-imagining of the Japanese legend, which many in the East now refer to as "GINO" (a.k.a. "Godzilla In Name Only").

Well, on 1-18-08, the West takes another crack at the Monster genre with the J.J. Abrams-produced Cloverfield, a Paramount Pictures release masked in secrecy about yet another Godzilla-inspired beast trying to conquer the Big Apple, albeit, this time, told from the postmoderny point-of-view of five young New Yorkers who just don't know when to stop filming and run.

First, The Deadbolt's Autopsy crew gives a rundown on what we know so far about Cloverfield (which, honestly, ain't much aside from a few sporadic reviews, interview bits, and images) and then we're going to tackle the question that's been bugging us ever since this high concept Rampage-remake floated onto our radar - how exactly do you END a Godzilla movie told from the Zapruder-esque POV of the cast of Real World: New York? Are they hoping the monster's camera shy? Will he be nervous about incriminating himself on film? Let's take a look.

CLOVERFIELD AUTOPSY REPORT:

OUR FINDINGS:

So, what's it all about, Alfie? According to Cloverfield's official website: "Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives." We know that one of the leads is Robert Hawkins (the going-away friend) and, following the attack, he wants to return into the heart of Midtown to rescue his estranged girlfriend Beth, who is apparently dying (which tends to happen when a giant monster stomps on your town). Robby, his friends Lily, Marlena, Jason, and their videographer pal Hud venture into the city and witness the military trying their damndest to stop the carnage, which involves, most memorably from the trailer, a decapitated Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, to quote one of the soldiers: "Whatever IT is, it's winning." (Oh, and there are allegedly smaller versions of the monster too, which may or may not burst out from inside infected New Yorkers. Eww...)

That's not a lot of information, but monster movies don't have a reputation for being particularly complicated. But, where-oh-where, in this age of creative corporate branding solutions, could we possibly glean further story details?

VIRAL MARKETING:

That's right. The industry that inspired those Aqua Teen Hunger Force guys to freak out all of Boston is, of course, the best place to go for help nowadays when you've lost the narrative thread. Cloverfield has a number of viral tie-in web sites, most notably, http://www.tagruato.jp/, http://tidowave.com, and http://www.slusho.jp/.

According to the sites, Tagruato is a Japanese corporation with widespread deep-sea drilling operations. One of Tagruato's subsidiaries is The Slusho Corporation, based around a weird anime-esque soft drink that looks like a combination of the Fruity Oaty Bars from Serenity and Slurm from Futurama. A recent post on the Tagruato web site mentions that "kaitei no mitsu, the special Slusho! ingredient lovingly known as 'Seabed's Nectar,' had been approved by the American Food Association." T.I.D.O. Wave is an environmental action group, which thinks that Tagruato is up to no good.

All of this weird viral info leads us to one of our favorite things...

STORY SPECULATION:

The Godzilla movies and their ilk have a long tradition of blaming the origins of their rampaging beasts on humanity's environmental blunders - nuclear testing, pollution, etc. - so, if the supposedly shady Tagruato Corp's deep-sea drilling is responsible for creating (or awakening) the Cloverfield creature, that won't be without precedent. In the recently-released Cloverfield production notes, Abrams almost confirmed this theory, describing the monster as "a baby. He's brand-new. He's confused, disoriented and irritable. And he's been down there in the water for thousands and thousands of years." The notes also mention that baby monster scrapes a layer of "parasites" off of his back in a "post-birth ritual," which sends a horde of dog-sized parasite-o-raptors into the city, looking for new and interesting things to latch onto. (Red flag - wasn't there smaller Godzilla-raptors in the 1998 remake? We're just saying...)

There are also rumors that protagonist Robby works for the Tagruato spin-off Slusho! (he's apparently leaving NYC to go work for Tagruato in Japan), so that would nicely tie the monster to our main characters. The only thing that worries us is the Slusho aspect, which leads us to...

DIAGNOSIS: OK, we realize that director Matt Reeves and screenwriter Drew Goddard might want to go deeper than "big lizard in my backyard" in terms of backstory for Cloverfield, but the viral story fragments are making us hope for a more minimal monster experience. J.J. Abrams' hit series Lost has a bevy of wacky nonsense-spouting viral sites, which, thankfully, haven't impacted the show's storylines yet, so maybe we're getting worried for nothing. Deep-sea drilling makes the monster? We're cool with that. And we're 98% sure that's what's going to happen.

But if the monster is motivated by wacky infected Asian soda pop, let's say it all together - "Lame, lame, lame, LAME!" (If the secret ingredient - "seabed nectar" - is really undersea monster eggs, then a). that's ridiculously stupid and b). whoever created Slurm for Futurama should call their lawyer.) Maybe we're reading into the viral thing too deeply, but if characters chug Slusho! and then have mini-monsters pop out of their chests John Hurt-style, we're officially going to request that Abrams join Chris Carter in the "Used to Be Cool" TV Legends Hall of Shame.

PENDING QUESTIONS:

Putting the story speculation aside for a moment (oh, please, please, let us be wrong about Slusho!), let's talk about the possible ways you can end a Manhattan monster mash like Cloverfield. A handheld Godzilla movie is a great high concept idea, but it also really limits you in terms of storytelling. In fact, by our accounts, there are only 4 ways a movie like this can end. Let's go over the possibilities.

Autopsy Report: Theories on Cloverfield Page 2