DRAMA; 1hr 45min
STARRING: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr
Something wicked this way comes… Winstead and Goodman
Nothing has changed for the better in this soul-sister follow-up to 2008's monster mash Cloverfield. The scene has shifted but the doomy song remains the same for Michelle (Winstead), whose car crashes in rural Louisiana. She comes to in a heavily stocked, fanatically secured bunker, maintained by a disturbing man (Goodman as Howard) who is either a singularly prescient survivor or a conspiracy theorist crazy.
Howard informs Michelle that while she was unconscious, a chemical attack occurred that left the atmosphere contaminated. The upshot: nobody is getting in or out of his creepy-cosy bolthole for at least a year. Michelle, about whom we know little except that she's no dummy, immediately smells a big, contaminated rat, even though Howard's story is corroborated by the makeshift household's third, credulous member, Emmett (Gallagher).
From thereon in, the ramifications are anybody's guess with the only certainty a memorably fierce turn from Goodman, who segues from righteous to frightening at the flick of a twist. First-time feature director Dan Trachtenberg has a dead-keen sense of timing and Winstead's transparent intensity is unerring. But in his ambiguous majesty, Goodman is the show's dark star.
