The giant monster movie genre is one that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in western culture. In ’98 we had the bastard love child of Roland Emmerich and Godzilla, and in 2005 Peter Jackson decided to copy a 72-year-old film rather than come up with an original idea. But beyond those two there weren’t any western monsters that one could call our own, and there are none at all that we could be proud of, particularly in recent history. I mean both Kong and Zilla were taken down by guns and missiles respectively. Fucking pussies. Compare that to the real Godzilla who can survive a fucking nuke to the face.

At least, that was true until 2008, when Cloverfield was released. Possibly one of the greatest monster movies ever made.

Cloverfield was surrounded by much mystery up until its January 2008 release because it was produced by J.J. Abrams. But I’ll get into that later. All that mystery contributed to the much deserved hype. It’s unique and engaging and I for one, loved it. Continue reading →