Shadow in the Cloud throws too many ingredients into the soup, but this mish-mash is ultimately still a fun watch.
Shadow in the Cloud Synopsis
At the height of World War II, the crew of “The Fool’s Errand,” a B-17 Bomber, receives an order to escort Flight Officer Maude Garrett to Samoa. The chauvinistic and derisive crew, however, confines Garrett to the Sperry, after which it becomes increasingly obvious that she is not who she claims to be. At the same time, a lethal presence within the bomber starts wreaking destruction.
Snappy Review
This action horror was many things to me.
Five minutes into the show and it’s obvious it’s a tribute to cinematic pulp fiction horror from the 80s. The lighting style is especially reminiscent.
The extended sequence in the Sperry is truly bold and masterful too. It fully depicts the terror of being locked in such a cage. It also invokes memories of the golden days of radio. As in, when voice and sound effects were more than enough to sustain tension.
And Chloë Grace Moretz. While her character transitions were sometimes awkward, when she gets down to kicking ass, she ensures you feel it.
Yup! It was all great fun to watch, despite the story actually making little sense. On the latter, I suppose I didn’t mind too much because that’s how pulp horror has always been to me. The emphasis on twist and turns, then over-the-top gore or brawling … Never mind the honeycomb of questions or loopholes in between the chapters.
Have to add too that the awful gremlin seriously felt like a metaphor for many things to me; the most obvious being gender prejudice. Such mentalities just wickedly nibble at our world from the shadows, don’t they? They also always refuse to die no matter how many crates you hurl at them.
Worst of all, it usually takes a huge catastrophe for such prejudices to be subdued. Often, the “gremlin” then returns at the soonest opportunity too. Luckily, within movies or not, we can rely on fighters like the gutsy Maude Garrett to stand up to them.
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