original Cloverfield trailer

Can we just accept that found footage movies, as a sub-genre, are for the most part indescribably lame (The Blair Witch Project gets a pass because it was the first, and who doesn’t like shiny new toys)?

Most movies, especially genre-favorites like science fiction and horror (and increasingly dramas) require a suspension of belief to become immersed in the story.  The burden for found footage movies is particularly onerous because you not only have to accept whatever (typically outlandish) scenario animates the movie, but you also have to believe that a normal human being–when chased by a giant monster, a hockey-masked killer, inbred cannibals or whatever–will risk their lives to keep filming, despite that what typically happens when you film and run at the same time is a nausea-inducing mess (unless you have a Steadicam. that is).

This would bother me less if it weren’t for the fact that if I even think too hard while shooting video, it looks like the camera was caught in a hurricane (that’s an exaggeration, though not by much).

Which is why I feel a bit better about 10 Cloverfield Lane.  While not a sequel to Cloverfield per se, it at least looks like it was filmed as a film, so there’s that.

10 Cloverfield Lane trailer