Review: Shadow in the Cloud (2021)

Directed by: Roseanne Liang
Starring: Chloë Grace Moretz, Taylor John Smith, Beulah Koale
Written by: Max Landis, Roseanne Liang
Music by: Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray/DVD (Artisan/Lionsgate)
IMDb

The concept of the gremlin — mischievous creatures with a fetish for destroying aircraft in flight, which originated as folklore among British pilots in the 1920s — has scared the shit out of horror fans since the ‘60s, when Richard Matheson, Richard Donner, William Shatner, and Rod Serling conspired in an episode of Twilight Zone to scar Boomers with an ape-like creature on an airplane wing. Then Gen X was done even dirtier with George Miller’s remake for Twilight Zone: The Movie, in which John Lithgow is terrorized by a truly creepy bug-eyed abomination. As a member of Gen X, I can only think of a few moments in horror that traumatized me as deeply as that goddamn finger wag.

Director Roseanne Liang gives the gremlin another go with Shadow in the Cloud, about Maude, a woman pilot played by Chloë Grace Moretz, who boards a World War II mission staffed by men, to transport a top-secret package. Pretty quickly it’s revealed that this is less a horror movie about a monster attacking her plane than it is a pulpy commentary on the hardship women faced during this era, particularly as they entered the workforce in larger numbers during the war. A period actioneer-slash-creature feature with some thoughts on toxic masculinity sounds fascinating on paper, but the screenplay was written initially by Max Landis, who is by many accounts a very toxic man. Supposedly, Liang significantly re-wrote the script once allegations of Landis’ sexual assault began to pop up, but he insists what’s on screen mostly represents what he wrote. Either way, his stink remains.

Anyway. To reinforce that the movie is focused squarely on Maude, Liang makes a choice to have Grace Moretz center stage the entire way through, even when she’s not participating in the action. Although I understand the motivation, this framing results in long, awkward stretches — especially in the first half of the film — where we watch Maude sit in a ball turret just listening to a bunch of off-screen male voices, heard via the intercom system, disparage her or talk about the stuff that’s going on in which she’s not actively involved. The approach could have worked if Maude were the central to the plot at all times or her state of obfuscation added tension, but neither of these are accurate.

Liang isn’t shy about showing her gremlin, and we see full glimpses of it pretty early on. The regularity with which is appears — and how often it’s completely unobscured, looking more like a reasonably well-rendered large, wingless CG bat than anything frightening — dampens potential scares. And the gremlin is really only a secondary threat; most of the crew’s attention ends up focused on attacking Japanese war planes or arguments amongst themselves. But once all of these conflicts finally smash together in a second half that’s way more frantically paced than the first, the movie is pretty engaging, even if it ends up less of a horror story than initially hoped.

The more significant issue with Shadow in the Cloud is its Bechdelian failures. Grace Moretz is the only woman in the film, so you can’t conduct a proper test. But Maude’s motivations, once revealed, are entirely driven by the men in her life, which is so disappointing and lazy. This doesn’t mean Maude isn’t kicking ass and saving the day, but it’s a giant whiff at the film’s larger goals. There are also some fluctuations in tone, in which Liang can’t decide how campy she wants to go (as with hammy character introductions). She ultimately plays everything too straight, I think; this is a movie that could have used an over-the-top, off-kilter aesthetic to juxtapose against its more serious core. The music, by Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper, is a fun synth-wave romp, but it feels a little dated since the resurgence of that style is already on the wane. Additionally, this is one of the more pointlessly rated R flicks in recent memory. There’s no graphic violence to speak of, no frights, no nudity, and nothing particularly controversial; the entirely of its rating seems based on dirty language. Liang should cleaned up the cussing a bit and gone for the PG-13, which might have broadened its appeal.

Shadow in the Cloud is far from terrible, and Grace Moretz is a pretty watchable star, but this just isn’t enough of anything to stand out, despite its intriguing concept.

Overall rating: 5 out of 10