The setup, however, is a bit of a fake-out. Howard has indeed made Michelle his prisoner – but only, he claims, to save her life. Above ground, there has been some sort of terrible attack: from a rival global superpower, or maybe a race of aliens. The air has been poisoned, and almost everyone exposed to it has died. What’s more, Michelle isn’t Howard’s only prisoner. There’s a third wheel in the bunker, a yokel of a handyman named Emmett (John Gallagher Jr), and Howard soon opens up the hideaway to both of them: kitchen, living room, entertainment system stocked with DVDs. He may or may not be some sort of monster, but he’s most definitely a doomsday survivalist, the kind of paranoid loner who has spent years waiting for the end to come. That’s why he has built this cramped but comfy suburban Hobbit-hole. Now that the end is here, he feels vindicated.

As Goodman plays him, with alternating currents of rage and courtliness, Howard is one part crazed control freak, another part savage protector. He’s whatever the movie needs him to be, since 10 Cloverfield Lane is an opportunistic hodgepodge of a thriller. Scene for scene, it’s well acted and not badly done, but you’re always aware that you’re watching a concoction. It’s Room meets Deathtrap meets Night of the Living Dead meets War of the Worlds. In a less fanciful, more grounded thriller, the suspense would be built around Michelle’s attempt at escape. But since there’s no safe world to escape to the suspense in 10 Cloverfield Lane hangs on the question: where the heck is this thing even heading?

Creature feature

Winstead, who had a striking presence in two films directed by James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now and Smashed), acts with a darting-eyed sensuality. The film pivots around the way she deals with Howard the creep by pretending to bond with him. Goodman uses his imposing girth to imply that he’s perpetually a step away from violence, but it’s Winstead’s Michelle, lithe and barefoot like a dancer, who’s really in control. She fights him off by seducing his trust.