I wonder if, before switching on the nightlight and retiring downstairs, the parents of the young J J Abrams told him there were monsters not only under the bed but also under the floorboards and clutching the limbs of the trees outside his window. The creative force behind TV’s Alias and Lost, Mission Impossible 3 and the current box-office hit Cloverfield has an unnerving knack for making you feel that, just off camera, just out of sight, some colossal, terrible force is about to make its presence known and change the way you think about life forever.

 

In Lost, Abrams showed us an enigmatic island, inhabited by the survivors of a plane crash. Subjected to a series of mysterious trials and terrifying

encounters, they are never sure whether they are laboratory rats in the maze of some maniacal scientists or prey to the whims of a supernatural entity. In Cloverfield, we’re hurled into the midst of an apocalyptic attack on New York, the suspense heightened by the fact that we observe the action through the shaky camcorder of a Manhattan party-goer. Just what is attacking the city isn’t fully revealed, and as the central characters are mere bystanders themselves, caught up in events beyond their control, you’re never certain what their fate will be.

 

Much will be made of the deliberate parallels between Cloverfield and ‘9/11’. The posters for the film depict a decapitated Statue of Liberty – does this suggest a United States shorn of its freedom because it fears ‘monsters’ in the closet that may or may not be real? The idea was treated more thoroughly in Lost, but Abrams’ theme of being thrown into circumstances incomprehensible to us raises the question of destiny: in whose hands does our fate ultimately lie? Ours? A predetermined biological code? A deity, be it terrible or trustworthy?

 

Proverbs 3:24-26 teaches that respect for the Lord leads to an unfailing assurance in the destiny that is marked out for us come what may:

When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

 

Have no fear of sudden disaster
or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked,

for the Lord will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being snared.

Feel free, then, to laugh in the face of things that go bump – or even roar – in the night.