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Is Cthulhu in Cloverfield?
Cloverfield finally hits theaters tonight. For weeks, and despite unofficial denials, rumor has swirled that the mysterious, top-secret monster(s) that devastate New York City in the new movie by Lost creator J.J. Abrams may come from H.P. Lovecraft’s WEIRD TALES pantheon of giant alien demon gods. Could we finally be on the verge of glimpsing Dagon? Or even great Cthulhu? Whether the Lovecraft connection is true or not, early word on the film suggests it’s one of the more spectacular weird tales to grace the screen in some years. WEIRD TALES readers, sound off on Cloverfield here! Is it great or over-hyped? And is Abrams shooting for a place on our upcoming list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years”?
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
What no discussion? I thought Cloverfield would be a more lively point of discussion among weird enthusiasts. Personally, I thought it did well on a sense of relatable dread, didn’t over explain the monster while leaving plenty of evidence for how it worked, and kept the idea of a Lovecraftian origin totally plausible.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I haven’t been able to make it out to the theatre to see it yet — but it’s next. (Just saw “The Orphanage,” which is a brilliant ghost story. Highly recommended.)
January 25th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I reviewed this film over at DOWN IN THE CELLAR. First giant monster movie that gave me some genuine chills. I mean, who watches Godzilla to get scared? We watch Gamera, Rodan, Mothra et al because it’s funny to see guys in rubber monster suits knock over models of skyscrapers. But do we ever give a moment’s thought to the imaginary people inside those buildings? Course not. The brilliance of CLOVERFIELD is that it puts us inside the building. Instead of panning back and showing us a spectacle, it sets us smack down in the midst of the maelstrom. That’s a frightening place to be, and Abrams, Reaves, cast and crew did a good job of making us feel that helplessness in the face of a destructive force on an order of magnitude that diminishes us to pathetic ants. Come to think of it, that in itself is pretty Lovecraftian.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:31 am
loved Cloverfield! definately makes you feel like you are running for your lives right in the middle of caos. the camera work is not for people with motion sickness.. so wait for the DVD, but you most definately need to see it! terrifying chills that made you feel like you had to get up and run for you life!!
January 28th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Boiled down, this was a Godzilla movie done in the style of Blair Witch. Not much more to it than that, but it worked REALLY well. I agree that there were some genuine chills; there were definite moments when I was getting tense in my chair. The subway tunnel chase was certainly high on the list (magnificent job of scaring us by what we DON’T see, rather than showing us something scary). And the Lovecraftian origin is very plausible - the thing was WAY too big to believably be able to avoid detection until it popped up on the beach. Only logical explanation for its sudden appearance: Some jerk opened a gate somewhere. It could definitely pass for an interpretation of a very irked Dagon.
As I said before, there’s not a lot to this movie; it could be summed up easily in one sentence. But what it does, it does supremely well, and is among the more enjoyable monster movies to come around in a long, long while.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:02 am
I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was hoping for a giant monster movie that actually made me jitter and some finely crafted destruction/mayhem, and it well delivered. And I’m usually a hard sell for things like this!
I felt the message of the story was delivered awfully heavy handed, maybe even ham fisted… but otherwise a very worthwhile experience. I also think Lovecraft would have enjoyed this spectacle in some way.
February 2nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Molly, you said you thought the message was delivered “awfully heavy handed, maybe even ham fisted.” I wonder, what did you think the message was?
February 10th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
[…] hype, but that may have come from NPR rather than from me paying attention), I did see that Weird Tales speculated that the monster might be Lovecraftian. That the monster might be Cthulhu or Dagon seems […]
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
He created Lost? Dear god! Oh well, at least Cloverfield’s an improvement.
Anyway, I don’t believe the film was supose to depict any Lovecraftian creature on purpose as the Cloverfield creature was designed from scratch in order to make it as “un-Godzilla-like” as possible. Futhermore, from what I’ve interpreted, the Cloverfield creature and Dagon or Cthulhu do not resemble each other in my view.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
i went to see cloverfield the day after it came out and and think its rather brilliant and i believed the myth that it was cthulhu or dagon but after examining the movie a few more times now believe the creature dipected in cloverfield was azathoth rather the cthulhu or dagon