Unpredictable 'Cloverfield' sequel a canny combo of claustrophobia, paranoia

Several years ago, I decided the best way to experience movies would be to know as little about them as possible before actually seeing them.

I mention this because “10 Cloverfield Lane” turns out to be the perfect movie to know absolutely nothing about.

It instantly throws us into disequilibrium, because we expect this sequel to be like the original “Cloverfield,” a tacky but effective 2008 “found footage” thriller about a mysterious giant creature that interrupts a millennial party in a New York high-rise forcing the partygoers to suddenly go running for their lives (while fortunately forgetting to turn off their recording devices).

Better-crafted, well-written, precision-edited and acted with aplomb, the super-secretive “10 Cloverfield Lane” (cast and crew didn't even know the title) reveals itself to be a tight, canny shape-shifter.

No, it's not about shape-shifters. It is a shape-shifter.

The story begins as a virtual silent movie, with a distraught young woman with large expressive eyes quickly packing up a few things, and leaving two items on the counter: the apartment keys and an engagement ring.

Her name is Michelle, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead as one smart cookie who doesn't easily crumble. As she drives away, we know something bad will happen because the ominous, busy strings in Bear McCreary's score build to a crescendo.

Boom! Crash!

We witness the collision from Michelle's perspective, a terrifying rollover that winds up at the bottom of a ravine.

Michelle awakens in what she thinks is a hospital room.

She realizes she's chained to a wall in somebody's cinder-block basement.

That somebody is Howard, an unkempt, overweight, middle-aged eccentric. (Imagine documentary filmmaker Michael Moore with a beard.)

John Goodman plays Howard, another one of the actor's multilayered, honest, spontaneous characters, only this one is a walking question mark. Is he a good guy who has saved Michelle, or has he concocted an elaborate story just to keep her hostage?

He explains nothing is left above ground. Some kind of attack from the Russians, or maybe the Martians, has poisoned the Earth, maybe.

So, it's just Howard, Michelle and a local yokel neighbor named Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) stuck in a well-designed, well-supplied underground bunker, forever playing board games.

Sure, we know Howard is a conspiracy theory freak and a passionate survivalist. Does that mean he's wrong?

First-time director Dan Trachtenberg knows exactly how to keep turning the screws on an ingeniously ambiguous screenplay, credited in part to Damien Chazelle, writer/director of last year's explosive “Whiplash.”

While navigating scenes of perfectly modulated tensions, we constantly shift our perspective of Howard. He's bad! No, he's a pretty nice guy. Wait! He's lying. No, he was telling the truth!

“10 Cloverfield Lane” constantly keeps us off-balance, unable to anticipate what's coming.

All Michelle knows is that she must escape, no matter what, and Winstead's mesmerizing merger of brain and body comes to the fore during the movie's breathless, shapeshifting final act.

What we get in “10 Cloverfield Lane” isn't just a well-executed thriller exploiting crippling claustrophobia and prickly paranoia.

It easily matches the snappy dread of AMC's pilot to “The Walking Dead” and FX's pilot to “American Horror Story.”

It's that good. And it's just the beginning.

“10 Cloverfield Lane”

★ ★ ★

<b>Starring:</b> Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr.

<b>Directed by:</b> Dan Trachtenberg

<b>Other:</b> A Paramount Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for language and violence. 104 minutes