Shadow in the Cloud movie review

"Shadow in the Cloud" is the best recent film that no one heard of, much less saw.

Everyone remembers the Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", and it's a lot of that, but mixed in with that episode of Amazing Stories, directed by Steven Spielberg, with the guy stuck in the belly turret of a World War 2 bomber.

Oh, and it's starring Chloe Grace Moretz, in the belly turret, with the male crew initially not believing her, of course.

Chloe Grace Moretz is always really good. But she is even better than that here. This is a committed performance. Like Kathleen Turner in "Romancing the Stone" decades ago, Chloe has to act tough, scared, aggressive, like a professional soldier, like a different person, and protective like a mother.

Maybe 50 minutes of the film is spent in the turret under the plane, just Chloe acting in front of us, with only crew voices over the intercom sharing the screen with her. (And I guess the gremlin as well.)

If you think about this as a B picture, you'll likely think of it as one of the very best. If someone you know is looking for a grind house film, they'll find it here.  The same can be said if someone wants to see a sci-fi or horror film too.  Maybe even a World War 2 film.

The director skillfully knows how to switch between horror, into action, and even drama in a few key moments. At first we get glimpses of the gremlin and think that's how it's going to be the whole time. Nope. We get dozens of seconds of it just staring at Chloe through the window, breath fogging on the glass, and that's when it becomes an action pic.

It is a modern film, so the fact that she is a woman flight officer, on a bomber being delivered from New Zealand to Samoa, is not lost on us. She is initially just a passenger, as the bomber is being delivered, but historically female pilots did actually fly bombers for delivery to bases in America, the UK, and other allied places. But still you have the men in the film, refusing to respect her flight officer rank, or take her seriously when she spots the gremlin tearing at an engine. (Even after one of the male crewmen believes he saw it too.) We all cringe when stuck in the turret, she listens on the comm to the crew rudely talking about what they'd like her to do to them.

I'm not spoiling anything, but the last shot of the film lets us know that they want Chloe's character to be thought of alongside Ripley in Aliens, and Sarah Connor in the Terminator films, only even more feminine and strong at the same time.

4 out of 5 stars

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https://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2021/02/shadow-in-the-cloud.html