Film File - Super 8

In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town set out to make a zombie movie. So far, so American Dream. However, while shooting their film - on a Super 8 camera, the iPhone of its day - they witness a catastrophic train crash that almost claims all their lives. As events unfold, they soon discover that the crash was not an accident. And shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town as the group try to uncover the truth - a reality much stranger than even their wildest teenage fantasies could imagine. The story begins in the immediate aftermath of an industrial accident where young Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is mourning the death of his mother and trying to get to know his remote Deputy Sheriff father Jackson (Kyle Chandler). A bit of timely distraction for the introverted Joe arrives in the form of his school buddy Charles (Riley Griffiths), who is making a home movie on his trusty Super 8 cine-camera for an amateur film competition in nearby Cleveland. The plot of his thriller concerns a detective's search for a cure to a zombie plague, with Charles inserting a new role for the initially lukewarm Joe. On a night shoot near a railway tunnel, Joe meets the rest of the cast and crew - Alice (Elle Fanning), Cary (Ryan Lee), Preston (Zach Mills), and Martin (Gabriel Basso). In the midst of a scene, they hear an train approaching, and decide to insert its passage into the film for 'increased production values'. Things go horribly wrong when a careering truck jumps the tracks, crashes into the train and causes a derailment that almost kills the youngsters. In the midst of the chaotic aftermath, Joe witnesses what he thinks is an alien creature escaping from the wreckage - moments before a military convoy appears to clear up the mess. Clutching the Super 8 camera which - yes, you guessed it - kept on filming through the entire episode and carries visual clues to why this strange event happened, the gang find themselves thrust into a mystery much larger than their little town. What happens to them over the coming days will prove a whole lot wilder than even their craziest zombie imaginings. Director and writer JJ Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg both discovered filmmaking in their childhoods, making Super 8 movies which laid the groundwork for all of their big-screen adventures today. In this dedication to the format, Abrams wanted to create a story in the tradition of the movies he fell in love with: quintessential tales set in a community where the daily struggles of work, love and family might seem ordinary until they are abruptly interrupted by extraordinary, frightening and fantastical events. Taking as his main theme a train transferring contents from Area 51, the legendary top-secret military installation in remote Nevada rumoured to store wreckage from UFOs and other unusual phenomena, he found the mix of crisis and entertainment that works seriously well for a generation entirely at home with monsters for another galaxy. Peppered with visual nods to 'ET', 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind' and 'Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers', this is a cracker entertainment - well worthy of the critical plaudits it trails from America. Managing to mix the visceral thrill of an exciting story well told with some home truths on the hard parts of growing up and coming to terms with loss, Super 8 is rightly billed as 'one of the best things in cinemas this summer'. The cast is superb - especially Fanning and Courtney, whose youthful chemistry is impossible to ignore - all pushed and pulled into ever more unpredictable situations by the boy-wizardry of Abrams. Super 8 is the ultimate antidote - a thrill ride that will clear your mind of almost everything. By the way, don't automatically leave at the closing credits - the amateur film for the Cleveland festival that began the whole adventure again pops up, with some of the best scenes of the movie.