Shadow in the Cloud: Neon NZ Film Review

Pulpy and preposterous, New Zealand director Roseanne Liang's foray into genre cinema benefits greatly from its desire to lean into its premise and absurdities when necessary, embracing them and experimenting with ease within their confines.

While owing a spiritual debt to the 1963 Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet which starred William Shatner, the taut Shadow In the Cloud joyfully embraces the elements of the horror genre when necessary.

Moretz is Maude Garrett, a female flight officer who's determined to catch a plane from Auckland's Allied Air Base on a stormy night in August 1943. With her arm in a sling, and the other resolutely gripping a box tightly, Garrett climbs aboard the Fool's Errand plane, much to the all-male crew's chagrin.

Destined for Samoa to drop off some transponders, the crew's already on edge with fears Japanese planes have invaded their airspace. Confined to the ship's underbelly in the glass turret Speer, Garrett endures a barrage of sexist conversation and general gaslighting, before she claims to have seen a furry creature on the exterior of the craft.

Just moments after the discovery, things start to go wrong for The Fool's Errand....

It's about 50 minutes in when you know if you're fully on board with Shadow In The Cloud's trappings - after a twist is unveiled and the film switches gears from a chamber piece to something much more genre-led and outrageously audacious, and B-movie crowd-pleasing.

Moretz is committed throughout, and while her initial appearances may be a bit shaky in tone, the film goes a long way to explaining why - and the gamut of her transformation feels earned and lived in.

Liang masterfully uses claustrophobic close ups (a wrench for Moretz who genuinely suffers from the condition) for her heroine's time in the turret and some more artful ways of introducing characters to save switching locations and derailing some of the suspicion and tensions that simmer throughout.

While the film goes all out in the end to nail its genre - and its OTT edges - the quieter implications of the overt misogyny of the all-male B-52 bomber crew early on are quite sickening, and at times, a bit too much, leading most of the men in the film to feel like one note writethroughs.

But then given this is Maude Garrett's film, that can be forgiven. Just.

WETA Digital's work comes to the fore with the creation of a Gremlin character in keeping with the animated army public announcement that starts the film - if anything, the tone of the film is nailed from the start, even with a pulsating electronic soundtrack subverting the usual wartime genre OSTs of sweeping strings and pianos.

It's here that Liang shows her desire to experiment with the form, and which helps it pay off during its short 82 minute run time.

Shadow in the Cloud is an unabashed, unashamed and outright popcorn film that plays with conventions while nailing the basics down - it's purely entertainment and shows Liang has more than what it takes to play within the confines of the Hollywood walls - as well as showcasing her ability to break them down and break through.