The movie monsters who cameo in 2008’s ‘Cloverfield’
A relatively inexpensive found-footage monster movie doesn’t seem like the type of film that would end up having a monumental impact on blockbuster cinema. But the sum of the parts that came together to create Cloverfield ended up having a huge say on a massive number of major franchises.
The street-level creature feature marked the first time Matt Reeves had directed a feature in 12 years, and he hasn’t done too bad for himself after taking over both Planet of the Apes and Batman in the aftermath. Meanwhile, it was the first screenplay credit of Drew Goddard, who would go on to pen The Cabin in the Woods, World War Z, and The Martian, among others.
Cloverfield was also the second-ever theatrical title produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, with the outfit eventually ending up with its fingers in Star Trek, Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, and DC. That’s without even mentioning the hugely profitable universe it launched, either, with at least one more instalment still to come.
Quietly creating an impressive legacy for itself, the number of creatives and companies involved in Cloverfield have all gone on to achieve incredible success since they first banded together, but they also made a point of sneaking in several references to some of their favourite cinematic monsters, too.
It’s hardly shouted from the rooftops and went completely over the heads of many. But a trio of city-destroying icons were nonetheless acknowledged at various points during the running time. The myriad of inspirations behind a hulking beast laying waste to a city are clear and obvious, but the post-production process saw Cloverfield sneak in some borderline imperceptible ones anyway.
Roughly 24 minutes into the film, the monstrous and murderous ants from Gordon Douglas’ 1954 classic Them! flash on-screen immediately prior to a conversation between two characters talking about one of them moving to Japan. Them! released in 1954, which was the same year America tested its nuclear capabilities at Bikini Atoll, with 10 Cloverfield Lane additionally hinting years later that the franchise’s own central creature was of nuclear origin in a hint of what was to come.
At 45 minutes, the titular titan from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is inserted into Cloverfield, with the 1953 favourite’s fictional Rhedosaurus also nuclear in nature. This also happens when the characters are underneath New York City to make them not slyer still, even if they weren’t quite at the same depths.
One of the most famous of them all rounds out the tributes, with a scene that sees the Cloverfield monster destroying tanks and helicopters splicing in a frame of King Kong, who, of course, famously swatted several aerial vehicles of his own when perched on top of the Empire State Building in the 1933 original.
The three individual frames are there for no other reason than homaging the monsters that came before, with the minds behind Cloverfield so determined to nod towards their forebears that it would have gone completely unnoticed by the majority of viewers.
