My brother-in-law is in town visiting his new niece, and to break up some of the monotony of watching my daughter coo, smile, coo again, and the poop herself (over and over), we went and saw Cloverfield.  I actually liked the movie quite a bit.  Yes, I got motion sick.  Yes, the acting was rough at times.  Yes, the movie requires a fair bit of suspension of disbelief.  But c’mon, it’s a monster movie!  You’ve got to be willing to swallow all these things.  I was, and I had a great time.

On top of the slight queasiness that I did not enjoy, and the anticiatory fear that I did enjoy, I was haunted throughout the movie by sense of real unease.  I couldn’t figure it out during the movie, but it was really bugging me and weirding me out.  I didn’t nail it down until I got home; there were no children in the movie.  I might be wrong about this.  I might just have missed them.  But I think one of the most noticeable things during a monster attack on a heavily populated city would be the terrified and wailing children.  Maybe that would have been too much to see.  Maybe J. J. Abrams was trying to spare us.  I do know that the last time I noticed this was on 9/11, because the planes hit during a school day, in the business center of New York.

I’m not sure why this is bugging me as much as it is.  Maybe because without children to take care of, I felt like the adults would be even more terrified.  I don’t know.  Creepy.