8. Abrams Makes Good Monsters
I still have mixed feelings about Cloverfield, but I'll say this: it's got one of the all-time great movie monsters. True, the Cloverfield monster - Clovy, for short - isn't perfect. He's an obvious descendant of King Kong and Godzilla. And the creature loses most of its presence once it's fully revealed in broad daylight. In the movie's defense, most movie monsters can't pull off a daytime look - to say nothing of their common mistake of wearing white after Labor Day. The filmmakers skillfully revealed Clovy over the length of the film. Cloverfield has a high number of "Holy Crap!" moments every time we see more of the monster... and the level of destruction it can cause. The monster still holds up several years later. Its staying power comes from the surprising amount of emotion it conveys throughout the film. Abrams and company had a clear back-story for the monster: it was a baby separated from its kind, that is suffering from separation anxiety. It's scared and alone in a world it doesn't understand, and all those tiny chewy things with guns won't stop shooting at it. Cloverfield conveys all these ideas without ever explicitly stating it, which shows a surprising amount of respect for the audience's intelligence. Half-Life monsters/aliens/whatevers have to work on the big screen, or the whole film will fall flat before the first act is over. Abrams creates terrifying monsters that believably inhabit the world around them. And he's got his work cut out for him - 'cause those headcrabs are just begging to look silly.