10 Cloverfield Lane is a 2016 American psychological horror-thriller film that was directed by Dan Trachtenberg, produced by J. J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and written by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stucken, and Damien Chazelle. The film stars John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher Jr. It is the second installment of the Cloverfield franchise. The film was developed from a script that was titled “The Cellar”, but under production by Bad Robot, it was turned into a spiritual successor of the 2008 film Cloverfield. The film follows a young woman who, after a car accident, wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who insist that an event has left the surface of the Earth uninhabitable.
The film is presented in a third-person narrative, in contrast to its predecessor’s found-footage style. It was released in the United States on March 22, 2016, in conventional and IMAX formats. The film received positive reviews from film critics, with may praising the performances of the cast, as well as the film’s tense and suspenseful atmosphere; it ended up grossing $110 million worldwide.
The Film Itself:
I’ve previously reviewed 10 Cloverfield Lane as it was initially made available on Blu-ray. You can find my thoughts of the film here.
Picture Quality (5/5):
The 4K UHD release of 10 Cloverfield Lane looked absolutely amazing as it played out across my living room television. Despite being what is considered to be a “fake 4K” release as it is an upscaled release, it offers a significantly more real feeling to the story at hand than its Blu-ray counterpart. Taking place primarily in the underground bunker, the movie includes just enough ambient lighting that allows for no visual distortion at all and no additional focus to understand what is going on.
Audio Quality:
The 4K UHD release of 10 Cloverfield Lane comes bundled with the same Dolby Atmos audio track that was previously bundled with the Blu-ray release. My thoughts on the audio track are documented here.
The Packaging (4/5):
10 Cloverfield Lane comes packaged in your standard two-disc 4K UHD amaray case. Within that case is the standard 4K UHD release of the film as well as the standard Blu-ray copy of the film. Both of the discs do not feature any artwork relative to the film whatsoever outside of the standard release text. The 4K UHD disc does feature the standardized black background while the Blu-ray has the standard blue background. A digital copy redemption pamphlet is included, as well as a slipcover that’s been made available during the initial pressing.
Special Features (2/5):
The 4K UHD release of 10 Cloverfield Lane is just like any other standard 4K UHD release as it does not include any special features on the UHD discs at all. All available content is made available on the included Blu-ray release. There is a single audio commentary with Producer J.J. Abrams, which is cool, but the featurettes included with the Blu-ray, although high in number, are low in content. They make up less than 30 minutes of content in total. The featurettes are as follows:
- Audio Commentary with producer J.J. Abrams and director Dan Trachtenberg
- Cloverfield Too
- Bunker Mentality
- Duck and Cover
- Spin-Off
- Kelvin Optical
- Fine Tuned
- End of Story
Technical Specs:
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Upscaled 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision + HDR10
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
German: Dolby Digital 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English, English SDH, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Runtime
Original Film: 104 minutes
Final Thoughts:
Generally speaking, the 4K UHD release of 10 Cloverfield Lane offers a much cleaner look to the film than its Blu-ray counterpart as it does a really great job at utilizing HDR10 throughout. It’s just sad that this release and the 4K UHD release of Cloverfield were hastily put together as they both make use of the same exact audio track that was originally provided when they originally came out on Blu-ray respectively. I can only really recommend picking up this release if you do not previously own the standard Blu-ray releases because there is not much benefit over them except for its inclusion of HDR.
Note: This Blu-ray was sent to us for review. This has not affected our judgement or editorial process in any way. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this process.