With a trailer as ambiguous as the original “Alien” film in the 70’s, I didn’t know what to expect when walking into “10 Cloverfield Lane.” Throughout the movie, John Goodman’s performance lifted the movie into something that would have otherwise been a train wreck into the best horror movie I’ve ever seen in a theatre.

This psychological horror was centered on Michelle, a fashionista who ran from her fiance and ended up in a car crash. She wakes up in the care of Howard, played by Goodman, and Emmet, a local farm boy, in his doomsday bunker. He tells her the world has been affected by a widespread chemical attack, but over time she realizes her need to escape this newfound prison to find out what is really happening.

The eerie 1970s American household design of the bunker and the absence of modern technology, other than a DVD player, pushed how distant they were in the bunker were from the outside. All they could do was play board games, watch old VHS and DVD’s and try not to aggravate Howard.

There are only three people in this film who matter: Howard, Michelle and Emmett. Emmett is local of the farm town where the bunker is located. He is boringly simple and archetypically gullible. However, both Michelle and Emmett were relatively boring characters. Both characters do not grow more mature or transform in any major way.

Howard was not only the main driver of this film due to his innate insanity. His personality is amplified by the gun he always carries and frequent panic attacks over seemingly trivial issues.His belief and expertise in conspiracy theories drive this doomsday preparer to unfold his past and show his true colors over time.

Without Howard, this movie could not exist. The film relies so heavily on Goodman’s character that Michelle isn’t really important until the final fourth of the film. This doesn’t equate to anything wrong with the writing or production, it just leads to the audience having belated high expectations for a sequel.

I’ll go one step further. Without Goodman, this movie could not exist. I cannot think of any other man who could fit the role as perfectly. He was able to transform the doomsday prepper idea on paper into someone twisted and dark that I would never want to meet in my life. It was truly an Oscar-worthy performance.

This is a movie that helps me believe that the piles of turd Hollywood outputs on a yearly basis can have a few diamonds in the rough. The horror genre churns a huge pile of turd to theatres every year, but this film is able to separate itself and become something truly suspenseful and ominous that I would gladly see again.