“10 Cloverfield Lane” is a gripping suspense story and features a chilling performance from John Goodman as Howard, a man who takes in two young adults after an invasion. The woman, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), was driving in her car after an argument with her husband and crashed. She soon learns that Howard brought her to the cellar, and he claims there was an invasion and now the air is toxic and she can’t leave for at least a year or two. She doesn’t believe Howard, but then she meets a man named Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who is also living there and tells her that it is true. He helped Howard build the bunker and saw the beginning of the invasion, and he just barely made it into Howard’s shelter.

Howard is temperamental and flies off the handle continually, prompting Michelle to try and escape. However, she sees a woman who is badly disfigured from the atmosphere outside the door, trying to get in, and she realizes that Howard has told her the truth. However, there is still more to Howard that Emmett and Michelle learn, and when they do, they make a plan to try and escape.

The movie features some humorous moments, mostly coming from Howard who views himself as sane and everyone else as mistaken about the world. He does make a point when he says, “Crazy is building your ark after the flood has already come.” The film features nail-biting suspense with several jump scenes. A few scenes feature some blood, but they are not gratuitous. Unfortunately, with about five minutes remaining in the film, the “F” bomb is uttered, thereby preventing us from awarding the movie our Dove “Family-Approved” Seal. It’s a shame that the film came close but didn’t make the cut.