YMMV / Cloverfield

• Awesome Music: Michael Giacchino's "Roar! (Cloverfield Overture)." Basically, a ten-minute suite of what the music for this movie would have been, had there been a score, and done In the Style of Gojira composer Akira Ifukube.
• Better on DVD: Even if the shaky-cam style of the film didn't make some theater-goers queasy, the fact that a DVD that you can pause or rewind at will greatly enhances the idea that you're viewing a tape found in the wreckage that's been kept in some government archive.
• Director Displacement: No, J. J. Abrams did NOT direct Cloverfield. That goes to Matt Reeves. Abrams' brand is so well-known and associated with similar projects that Reeves is rarely given his credit for directing the film.
• Epileptic Trees: Plenty, and those are only the tip of the iceberg. The Alternate Reality Game tied into the film lead to many more of them, most of which were Jossed.
• Fan Nickname: The monster has been given many nicknames, including Clovie, Clover, MGP, and Darwin.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Hud and Marlena sharing a moment together after escaping the subway tunnel when she's bitten by a parasite. Sadly, it doesn't last.
  • Some of Rob and Beth's interactions, particularly the Happy Flashbacks spliced into the footage.
  • The scene after Marlena's death, where one of the soldiers takes pity on the group. He points them in the direction of Beth's place, warning them about Hammerdown and when the last chopper leaves as they go. It contrasts with the borderline-brutal professionalism shown to the group by the other soldiers, and is a subtle example of The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • An alternate ending suggests that Beth and possibly Rob too survived the Hammerdown bombing, showing that it is plausible.
  • Jason seemingly dies when Clover's tail smashes through Brooklyn Bridge. The other characters assume he died, due to being far away from him at the time, but his body is never seen.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Prior to the release of the film, the monster was speculated to be none other than Godzilla himself. Eight years later, Shin Godzilla would run with Cloverfield's premise and filming style.
  • Director Matt Reeves would later direct Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a film in a franchise that is, like Cloverfield, arguably best known for a shot of a destroyed Statue of Liberty.
• I Am Not Shazam: None of the characters are named Cloverfield, not even the monster (though the filmmakers nicknamed it "Clover"). Cloverfield was the designation the government gave to the videotape that was in the camera throughout the film. A pseudo-explanation for the name is that the monster leaves clover-shaped footprints, and so its rampage through the city left the area looking like a field of clovers.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Plenty of people went to the movie just to see what the monster looked like (as it was completely absent from the marketing).
• Les Yay: Lily and Marlena are quite touchy with each other at times.
• Memetic Mutation: Marvel Cinematic Universe fans flocked to the comments sections of this movie in droves in 2018, thanks to the scene where a character says "I don't feel so good" moments before dying.
• Narm:
  • The parasites sound rather like an angry Donald Duck.
  • The electronics store scene racks up its far share of these moments:
    • Out of all the things they could have chosen to be playing on the TVs, they chose SpongeBob SquarePants for several of them.
    • Hud's line "It's time to leave the electronics store" has incited a few chuckles from fans.
    • As they're moving to leave, Hud turns the camera on some looters, who are just standing idly as if waiting for direction.
  • The shot where Marlena explodes. Most of the film's CGI ranges from "pretty good" to "really great", and then there's a shameless Shadow Discretion Shot in the middle of it.
  • The fact that every instance in which an exclamation of "fuck" would have been more appropriate is replaced with the PG-13-friendly "OH GOD!"
• Older Than They Think: Aside from having non-military/scientist types being the main characters in a monster movie, there's the parasites: Godzilla had lethal 5ft sea lice called Shokilas way back in 1984.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • TJ Miller made his film debut as Hud and, despite spending most of it behind the camera, his voice will be recognisable to any How to Train Your Dragon fan.
  • Lizzy Caplan was known for Mean Girls, but she'd appear in other notable projects such as True Blood, Masters of Sex and Now You See Me 2. Mean Girls itself would become even more of a Cult Classic in The New '10s.
• Rewatch Bonus: If you rewatch the movie with the knowledge that the monster is a Non-Malicious Monster (not to mention all the other stuff from the ARG and Word of God) then the movie will make a lot more sense for you.
• Signature Scene:
  • No shot is more indicative of Cloverfield than the Statue of Liberty's decapitated head being chucked into the streets of Manhattan.
  • Directly behind it would be Hud's face to face encounter with the monster in the closing minutes of the film, followed by a Point of View shot of Clover angrily glaring down at him.
• Spiritual Adaptation: JJ Abrams has admitted that Cloverfield was his attempt at an American version of Godzilla. This video by Up The Depths describes the film as an Americanized version of the original 1954 movie for its portrayal of the monster and weaving a political metaphor into the story (nuclear weapons in Gozilla, terrorism in Cloverfield).
• Tough Act to Follow: Why the sequel was in Development Hell for so long.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Look up Cloverfield on DeviantArt, and see how many pictures people draw of chibi/baby Clovie.
  • The films plays out very differently when you keep in mind that Clovie isn't evil or a horrible agent of destruction. According to creature designer Neville Page, he's more like a lost puppy.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The film looks modern enough but the fact that it's being filmed on a camcorder that still uses tape places it to the late 2000s before most home cameras would use SD cards instead. The characters use the 2000s flip phones, and only use them for calling, with no mention of the internet at all; they have to crowd around a TV to get information on the news about what's happening, and use a subway map to get to Beth's house. Superficially, there are also several swooping fringe haircuts on the boys at Rob's party, instantly placing the setting to the late 2000s.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Hud is meant to be the bumbling but ultimately well-meaning best friend of our hero Jason, as well as the comedic center of the film. Trouble is Hud is a selfish nitwit and, frankly, kind of a dick. This is best shown during the scene in the subway tunnel where Hud rather bizarrely keeps recanting a story about a Serial Killer that set homeless people on fire. At the same time that a monster is violently destroying New York City just above ground, which has left our heroes traumatized and stressed beyond belief. Then when his friends understandably don't want to hear any more, he continues on like it's all a big joke.
• Vocal Minority: While the movie developed a sizable hatedom on the internet for the Jitter Cam, it was actually critically acclaimed and extremely profitable.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The film may look like another Godzilla-style film (Discounting the original, 1954 version which is even darker in tone), but it isn't for kids, unless they like blood-sucking parasites whose bite eventually causes the victim to explode, subplots about unfaithfulness, wreckage evocative of 9/11, a woman impaled on a metal spike, the monster eating Hud the cameraman, and all of New York being bombed, with no survivors.
• The Woobie: All of the protagonists are basically this. Hell even the monster Clover from its perspective can be considered this.

---