Jeffrey Jacob Abrams has conceived and produced three films in the Cloverfield franchise thus far. To begin, the first episode of the film franchise, Cloverfield, was released in 2008, and it featured six people escaping from a giant monster that ambushed New York City while they were having a farewell party.
Matt Reeves’ monster movie with a found footage theme attracted curiosity right away, and to be honest, things grew even more exciting as the franchise progressed, bringing us, movie fans, to a universe of storylines where virtually anything might happen.
In today’s video, we’ll look at the three films, the Clover creatures, and the scary alternate dimension notion in depth. You’d better be prepared!
Some Thing Has Found Us – Cloverfield (2008)
The 2008 monster film, which won five awards and received 34 nominations, begins with recovered footage from a personal camcorder that is now in the control of the US military.
Rob Hawkins is seen waking up with girlfriend Beth McIntyre at her father’s apartment in New York on the morning of April 27, 2008, according to older recorded footage. Rob is seen teasing Beth with his camcorder about her never visiting Coney Island and the duo decide to take a trip there on that very day. The video tape is seen documenting the entire events of Cloverfield throughout the run time of 85 minutes.
The action then shifts to Rob’s departure party, which his brother Jason and fiancee Lily are hosting to commemorate his new employment in Japan. It’s May 22nd, about a month since Rob and Beth returned from their trip, and it’s evident that their relationship has gone to hell, with Beth bringing a new guy to the party, much to Rob’s dismay.
Meanwhile, Rob’s friend Hud begins to film testimonials for Rob during the party oblivious to the fact that he is recording over the duo’s Coney Island date tape. Post an argument between Rob and Beth, the latter is seen leaving the party to head back to her flat.
With Jason trying to cheer Rob up, the apartment building starts shaking violently by what initially appears to be an earthquake followed by a fleeting loss of the electrical power supply throughout the city.
With loud roars being heard in the area, the guests of the party head up to the roof only to witness a massive explosion taking place nearby and blazing rubbles flying towards them. Panic strikes and the guests start making their way downstairs to leave the building. As they make it to the streets, the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty crash-lands right in front of them.
A gigantic beast is seen destroying everything in its path, including the Woolworth Building. It’s the same beast who subsequently destroys the Brooklyn Bridge, killing Jason and a large number of other people. To make things worse, smaller parasitic creatures are seen dropping themselves from the main creature on the ground and attacking people.
Rob is able to lay his hands on a battery for his phone and soon gets a message from Beth being trapped in her apartment and unable to move. Rob along with his friends decides to help out Beth and they make their way through Midtown Manhattan. In the process, they get caught up in a crossfire between the military and the monster and whilst scurrying for safety, they take the subway thinking it’s safe.
But unbeknownst to them, a horde of those parasitic creatures ambush them and one of the guests from the party, Marlena, gets bitten by them. The group somehow manages to escape the subway and come to a below ground shopping mall that has been converted into a makeshift field hospital.
By then, Marlena is already looking and feeling pretty sick to the extent that she starts bleeding from her eyes. She is dragged inside a medical tent by some staff wearing hazmat suits much to the confusion of her friends and her body is later seen to explode.
Rob is even more determined to save Beth now, and after persuading a military sergeant to let the group escape, he is ordered to return to a military evacuation zone before six a.m.
The military has made it clear that they want to carry out their “Hammer Down Protocol,” which entails destroying the city to kill the creature. The group is successful in locating the injured Beth, save her from her apartment and make their way back to the evacuation site at Grand Central Terminal.
They are more than petrified to see the creature once again and in the ensuing rush, Lily is put on a different helicopter. Rob, Beth and Hud get on the next helicopter and as they fly over the city, they are able to see the creature being bombed and getting knocked down into a building under an impenetrable cloud of smoke.
While most viewers will believe that the terror is finally over, the beast surprises them by lunging from nowhere and attacking the helicopter with the trio inside. The chopper crashes in Central Park; Rob, Beth, and Hud recover consciousness and finally assist one another in escaping; it is clear that everyone on board is killed in the collision. Rob, having injured his leg, is barely able to move.
Hud is seen putting his camcorder down to help Rob and when he comes back to take the camera, the creature appears and devours him. The upper part of Hud falls out of its mouth with the camera and Rob and Beth are seen shrieking and crying in horror.
With not much time left to escape before the bombing starts, the duo grabs the camcorder and takes refuge under an archway. With the bombing starting, the duo film their final testimonials. Rob is seen comforting Beth to the best of his abilities when a bomb drops on the park. The archway above them crumbles and the camera gets knocked out of Rob’s hands. The doomed couple is last seen screaming while the creature lets out a heavy roar in the background.
‘Help us,’ says a murmured voice at the end of the film. ‘It’s still alive,’ it says when the same music is played backwards.
Who would have guessed that handheld camerawork could have such terrible consequences on its audience? Well, director Matt Reeves and producer J. J. Abrams came up with the concept for Cloverfield in 2008, and it’s unlike anything you’ve seen before.
But it is the execution, its level of whip-smart creation and sheer simplicity that makes this movie such a brilliant watch. Backed by a screenplay by Drew Goddard and a budget of $25 million, it is a movie that features no background score. But hey, did that stop this movie from earning $172 million worldwide and being regarded as a ‘pure-blood, grade A, exhilarating monster movie’? Guess, we all know the answer to that!
Monsters Come in Many Forms – 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Dan Trachtenberg made his directorial debut with this science fiction psychological thriller, which has won 16 awards and received 48 fascinating nominations. The film begins with Michelle packing up her belongings after an altercation with her fiancé, putting off her ring, and leaving the city, thanks to a screenplay by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle.
While driving through the rural area, she turns on the radio to find out that several cities have been affected by continuous blackouts. Furthermore, a call from her fiancé distracts her to an extent that her car gets slammed by a truck and it flips off the road. Michelle regains her consciousness only to find herself in an underground bunker, chained to the wall.
A strange man called Howard approaches her, tells her of an unknown attack which has resulted in the contamination of the air outside, how everyone outside is dead and claims that it was him who had brought her to his bunker after finding her unconscious in the car accident.
Howard eventually gives her a tour of his fully stocked bunker and that’s when she meets Emmett, another survivor who, after witnessing the attack, had voluntarily come to Howard’s bunker.
Even with Howard showing her two rotten pigs as after-effects of the poisoned air outside via a viewport, a skeptical Michelle is successful in stealing the keys of the bunker and is almost about to open the main door to escape when she sees another woman, her skin almost melting, screaming and demanding to be let in. The woman even starts to bang her head on the glass door and that’s when a horrified Michelle realizes that Howard might be telling her the truth.
Howard also reveals that it was his truck that caused Michelle’s car to lose control, but that he did it in a rush to get to his bunker. Michelle assists Howard in stitching the hole on his forehead that she had inflicted on him earlier, and she finally learns about his daughter. For a few weeks, everything appears to be good, and the trio appears to be a lot more relaxed with each other as they adjust to life underground.
However, things change the minute Michelle is asked to climb through the air ducts to reset the air ventilation system that starts malfunctioning. She discovers a ‘HELP’ message there along with an earring that she had seen in a picture that Howard had shown her of his daughter.
Michelle shows the picture to Emmett who instantly recognizes the girl as a missing person from his high school. It does not take them much time to comprehend that the real threat happens to be Howard and together they start thinking of a plan to escape from the bunker as soon as possible.
By stealing Howard’s tools, they are able to create a makeshift hazmat suit as well as a gas mask. Howard is able to figure out what the duo has been up to and confronts them. Emmett takes the blame and Howard cold-bloodedly shoots him in the head with his revolver.
Michelle is all the more desperate now to escape the bunker and she tries everything she can to discreetly finish the biohazard suit. In spite of that, her actions get discovered in the process but she is smart enough to topple a barrel of perchloric acid right over Howard, disfiguring him and accidentally causing a fire. Michelle puts on the suit and is able to escape right before the bunker explodes.
This attracts the notice of a passing spacecraft, which lands an alien quadrupedal species. Michelle is forced to take sanctuary in Howard’s truck after the enormous craft releases a deadly gas. The craft appears to devour along with the truck she is inside but not before Michelle fights back by crafting an improvised Molotov cocktail and destroying the craft.
Michelle drives away to Houston after hearing an emergency radio broadcast requesting the aid of survivors with medical or fighting experiences to join the fight against the invasion.
A massive extraterrestrial spacecraft is seen floating above near the end of the film.
While Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane was based on the script The Cellar, it was eventually adapted into a spiritual sequel to the 2008 film Cloverfield. The second entry in the Cloverfield film franchise, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, and John Gallagher Jr., purposely plays on forced perspective, keeping one in the dark about what is genuinely going on.
It is fast-paced, it is intense and while it’s true that it’s less visually engaging than its predecessor, it is a flick that is bound to make you think and keep guessing if you as a spectator are headed in the right direction or not. And when you have finally convinced yourself, it throws you back into a world that you just did not see it coming.
The finale is inevitably the high point of the whole movie and one of the bests if we may add. There is this sense of uneasiness throughout the run time of 104 minutes and for that, we have Goodman to give full credits to. He is fabulous and you are going to get simply blown away by his performance. Still boasting a current IMDb rating of 7.2, 10 Cloverfield Lane deserves your time and a watch.
The Future Unleashed Everything – The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
The Cloverfield Paradox by Julius Onah takes place in the year 2028 when the state of the Earth isn’t fantastic. The environment is degrading and the Earth is running out of energy. People have been seen using unsafe gadgets to drain power since essential things like petrol and electricity have been rationed. Naturally, this leads the space agencies of the world to put into test the Shepard Particle Accelerator on the Cloverfield Station as the ultimate plan to save humanity.
Of course, it has its pros and cons. If it works, it will provide the planet with an immeasurable amount of new energy but according to conspiracy theorists, it also has a high possibility of opening up several gateways to parallel dimensions. The crew chosen for the mission has British communications officer Ava Hamilton, American commander Jason Kiel, German physicist Ernst Schmidt, Brazilian doctor Monk Acosta, Irish engineer Gordon Mundy, Russian engineer Sasha Volkov and Chinese engineer Ling Tam.
The crew has been working on the Shepard Particle Accelerator for two years, and they are finally able to turn it on. However, it quickly overloads, resulting in a power surge. The crew is able to restore the basic functions but to their complete horror, they discover that they are no longer orbiting around the Earth. It is like the whole planet has just disappeared and to top it, even the gyroscope has mysteriously gone missing. Soon, bizarre events start taking place at the station.
To begin, an enigmatic woman is discovered inside one of the wall panels, her entire body fused with electrical cables. The crew is able to save her, and they are taken aback when Mina Jensen reveals that she has known Hamilton before. Volkov starts behaving oddly; he starts talking to his own reflection and is further compelled to craft a gun.
But he collapses on the ground, starts convulsing and has worms burst out of him. Next, Mundy has his arm sucked into the wall panel and with Hamilton and Kiel pulling him out, it is seen that Mundy’s arm is no longer attached to his body. There’s no bleeding or pain; in fact, the severed arm is seen moving around the ship on its own.
With the arm attempting to write something, the crew is instructed to ‘Cut Volkov open’ and it is only after they do so that they discover the missing gyroscope inside his body. With the navigation device, they are finally able to trace Earth. While restoring their communications, they are shocked to learn that the people believe the station was destroyed while they were working on activating the Shepard.
The crew quickly realizes that they have not only activated the Cloverfield Paradox, but have also been pulled into a parallel universe in which Jensen has replaced Tam as the station’s engineer, Hamilton has decided to stay on Earth with her husband Michael and children, the latter of whom is still alive, and Schmidt is a German military operative, despite the fact that she is still a part of the current mission. The entire team arrives at the notion that if they can reawaken the Shepard, the Paradox can be rectified.
Tam is able to figure out the root cause of the problem – why the Shepard failed and with her attempting to make repairs, she gets killed in a freak accident. In the meantime, Hamilton at the thought of her children being alive and not killed by the house fire accident makes up her mind to stay in the parallel universe with Jensen. Mundy gets trapped in a strong magnetic field and that leads a part of the station to explode, killing him in the process too. As for Kiel, he ends up sacrificing himself in order to save the station.
Back on Earth, Hamilton’s husband Michael is startled awake by a loud explosion and sees the shadow of a massive creature for a brief moment. He makes the decision to check on the casualties at the hospital where he works. On his way, he makes a halt to help out a child that he heard crying for help.
After discovering that the hospital has been destroyed, he takes the young girl to his friend’s underground shelter to treat her wounds. Back at the station, Hamilton is all set to leave with Jensen and go to her parallel universe when the latter knocks her unconscious.
Next, Jensen is able to kill Monk thanks to Volkov’s handgun that she has now in her possession and also wounds Schmidt. She claims that the Cloverfield station has to stay in her dimension as that would allow her to save the people of her planet.
Lucky for Hamilton that she regains her consciousness just on time to learn the real intention of Jensen. A fight ensues between the two and it ends up with Hamilton firing at the nearby window and eventually ejecting Jensen out into space, killing her.
Hamilton knows she must return to her own reality, but not before sending a message to her parallel universe counterpart with precise instructions for duplicating the Shepard device and a reminder of the importance of her family. She and Schmidt are finally able to put Tam’s algorithms to work and get Shepard to work.
Following that, the two return to Earth in a capsule craft. However, as the capsule is seen re-entering Earth, a colossal monster bursts through the clouds, letting out a loud roar and the screen cuts to black.
The third episode of the Cloverfield film franchise began as an independent project called ‘God Particle.’ The plot is set during a conflict with Russia, and a group of American astronauts find themselves literally on the line when they learn that Earth has vanished and that a Russian ship is attempting to contact them.
Till date, there seems to be a hot discussion amongst fans and critics who are of the opinion that the original flick, one that was not really related to the Cloverfield movies would have fared way better than the end result. Coming back to Onah’s 2018 science fiction horror film, the screenplay by Oren Uziel bridges the gap between the other Cloverfield movies with a substantial plot.
The movie has its plot developments and eerie sequences thrown at a solid pace and let’s not forget in a visually striking way too. Mind you, The Cloverfield Paradox will be more relevant for viewers who are already well-versed with the franchise and if you are someone who still has not watched either of the films, we highly recommend that you do so right away.
Cloverfield Alternate Dimension Theory Explained
There is a widely held Cloverfield idea that each of the three films takes place in a different dimension. Let’s have a look at the first three films. The first film mostly depicts the aftermath of a creature attack in New York City. The second movie has a young woman trapped inside a bunker by a man who claims that there has been some kind of an attack outside, one that has resulted in the air becoming unbreathable and toxic.
However, the finale of the second movie reveals it to be yet another monster attack. Then comes the third movie, which has a crew sent into space to deal with Earth’s critical energy crisis.
With the crew activating the Shepard Particle Accelerator in the hopes of saving humanity, they in turn trigger the Cloverfield Paradox, opening up portals to parallel dimensions. The third film ends with the appearance of a monster probably from the first movie. Now that we are all on the same page, let’s get to the explanation of the theory.
It is critical that you recall how the third film concluded, as this is the basis of this hypothesis. With the appearance of a monster at the finale, it’s evident that the Cloverfield Station astronauts unintentionally freed the creature from the first film. Even the astronauts are depicted as having multiple counterparts in other realms.
The third film validates this point by showing two versions of Ava Hamilton – one where she lost her children to a house fire and the other that still has her children alive. So, it is pretty much evident that alternate dimensions exist within the confines of The Cloverfield Paradox.
Stressing a little further, it is disclosed right at the beginning of the third film that the Cloverfield Paradox will not only open up portals to parallel dimensions but also have their horrors threatening across the multiverse.
There would also be an inevitable ripple effect across time, accidentally created by the astronauts. Those who have seen the third movie will know that when the crew on the Cloverfield Station are finally able to activate the accelerator, there happens to be a massive power surge within the station. If you think closely, the power surge is precisely what is accountable for a tear across time and space.
Of course, we will substantiate our point here – in about precisely 18 minutes into the third movie, the power surge is seen taking place. Now, if we take a look into the first Cloverfield movie, the earthquake takes place exactly in about 18 minutes, releasing the monster.
In the second movie, the character of Emmett is seen talking about a red flash of light that he had seen in the midst of the attack. Now tell us one simple thing – can all of these be just mere coincidences? If you ask us, we think these events are proof to the fact that it was an incident taking place in the future that impacted the previous films and it could possibly never happen if there wasn’t a tear across time and space.
Clover – The Cloverfield Monster
In the year 2008, all of its viewers were introduced to a monster known as The Cloverfield Monster, which was eventually renamed Clover. The monster was created by artists Neville Page and J. J. Abrams does not have a specific taxonomic identification. But there happens to be an official government designation that covers the creature till a certain point. For all we know, it comes under the category of a ‘Large Scale Aggressor’.
Surmised to be either a creature that has an underwater or interdimensional origin, Clover happens to be a newborn specimen of its species and in all probability, is separated from its clan. The origin of the monster is only disclosed in the film’s viral marketing campaign which is quite strategic on the part of Abrams. He didn’t want just another monster movie, he wanted his flick to be realistic so that when the monster attacks, people will simply have no idea where it came from.
Returning to the beast, it is a deep-sea organism with an unknown evolutionary history. Because the monster on show is a young one, an infant to be precise, there are no points for guessing that it has a long life span. Clover boasts an enormous size, about 240 to 300 feet high. Wondering what’s the secret behind its colossal size?
Well, it’s primarily due to the creature devouring a gargantuan amount of seabed’s nectar, a natural steroid-like substance, one that is highly moreish and causes an augmented cell division as well growth. By the way, the same ingredient is used by the Japanese mining company Tagruato’s subsidiary company, Slusho! while manufacturing their frozen drink. Coming back to the monster, it kind of activated its hibernation mode.
One of Tagruato’s marine scientists, Kazui Ichikawa, is credited with discovering the monster. The mining firm, on the other hand, confiscated Ichigawa’s laptop, all of his paperwork, and even killed him and his family when they were on vacation. Eventually, the monster was identified, and a Chuai station was built on top of its position, announcing that oil was being drilled in the region.
Of course, the company did not stop at that, it even had numerous submarines sent from the station above to the ocean bed to study the creature. This is precisely what bothered the creature and awoke it. Come on now, even a sleeping human gets agitated when it’s disturbed. This is a mammoth we are talking about. No wonder, it got angry and it ended up destroying the station first and then made its way towards Manhattan.
Yes, it did not even spare the Statue of Liberty. It was hungry and it wanted to eat so imagine its wrath post discovering what it sank its teeth in was not exactly edible. It hurls the head into the city streets. Totally, justified! Next, comes the military whose attacks initially frighten the creature but eventually enrages it even further. It goes on a rampage and starts destroying the landmarks. It even effortlessly took down helicopters.
What we’re looking at is a quadruped monster with a long tri-forked finned tail, 30-40 foot-long feet, and a face that looks like a piranha or an angler fish. Two external esophagi are located between the monster’s legs and are mostly utilized to consume smaller species, namely humans. It’s gray in color and has skin that shows very strong resistance to heavy weapons, heat, and even pressure for that matter.
Imagine shells from M1A2 tanks, M109A6 Paladins, AT-4 rockets, FGM-148 Javelin missile launchers, AGM-65 Mavericks, and MK-82 not having any effects on the creature. So, you know exactly what we are talking about! Well, post countless failed attempts to destroy the monster, the government was left with no other options but to execute their “Hammer Down Protocol,” – bomb the entire city to kill the creature.
Apart from Clover, the former is also home to these ‘Human Scale Parasites.’ We’re especially concerned about crab-like animals that fall to the earth from their symbiotic main host. Their bite, by the way, is totally fatal. If you have seen the first movie, you are bound to remember what happens to Lizzy Caplan’s character. For those who haven’t seen the movie, the bite of these Human Scale Parasites had Caplan’s character bleed from her eyes first and then her body bursts without giving any of us any warning.
Is There Going To Be Cloverfield 4?
We have some exciting news for all of you Cloverfield fans. There has already been an official announcement of a fourth film, with J. J. Abrams served as producer and Joe Barton served as a screenplay. Abrams has also described Cloverfield 4 as a picture that is more like a faithful and authentic sequel to its predecessor. Unlike the other installments, the fourth movie will not be a found footage flick nor will it be an extension of its predecessor.
This means Barton has the liberty to come up with an ingeniously creative story. But having said that, please keep this in mind that it will be related to the 2008 release. Other aspects of the new movie are kept undisclosed right at the moment but we are pretty sure it is bound to surprise the viewers. The movie is still in the making, production has not yet started therefore it is devoid of a tentative release date.
So, if you’ve never heard of the franchise before, we strongly advise you to check it out. If you enjoy monster movies and science fiction films, this franchise is unquestionably for you.