10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (2016) – MY rating: 8.5/10

10 Cloverfield Lane is a good one. Advertised as a thriller/horror movie, it’s a lot of one and some of the other. It keeps you guessing all the way through. I was entertaining at lease three endings before we even reached the middle of the movie. A young lady Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) apparently leaves her fiancé, Ben. On the way to where ever she was going, she drives through Louisiana late at night and has an accident with something (lets assume it’s another car). The next scene, she’s bolted to a wall, unconscious in a bed, locked in a concrete room with bruises on her leg and face. Soon a man named Howard (John Goodman) appears who eventually tells her a story about why she is there, in his bunker and how grateful she should be. The air outside is contaminated, according to Howard, and there may be aliens who have taken over the world or not. Perhaps the explosion she allegedly saw, only took out the United States of America or just the state of Louisiana. At any rate, there’s no escape for at lease two years. Many things happen that support Howard’s theory eventually making a semi-quasi believer out of Michelle. They become friends for a time but Howard shows a violent side which makes it difficult to trust him. As time goes by, Michelle learns more about Howard and their situation and grows more suspicious. There is also one other young man named Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) living in the underground bunker with them. He seems normal and very nice and they get along well. Howard however, seems to be agitated with Emmett most of the time. Forming her own conclusions, Michelle plots an escape, but Howard is too smart and too suspicious. As the film forges on, we begin to draw our own conclusions but things are not what they seem. We are mostly incorrect right up to the very end. This movie is different, entertaining, well thought out and very well acted. Dan Trachtenberg, in his directorial debut, left no stone unturned as closure was brought to all. I wouldn’t be surprised if a sequel is in the works. Nicely done!