I can’t say I’m surprised by this. Reports have been flooding the net for several days now, from the first moment Cloverfield opened, indicating that the movie may actually be making people sick. This morning, on the Howard Stern Show, producer JJ Abrams admitted openly that the movie is making people ill.
So what’s the problem, and should you be worried about seeing it? Maybe. The site Medicine Net has run a report on the phenomenon explaining it as motion sickness. The entire movie is shot through a jerky, amateurish, handheld camera. They say that bumpy camera work can cause the same kind of nausea that the motion of a car does in some people.
Getting a little sick to the stomach isn’t so bad. Movies have had done much worse. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for instance, has been known to cause seizures and blackouts in some people, and I can attest to that having experienced it firsthand. I’ve never been able to make it through the entire movie without experiencing dizziness and blurred vision, and I usually have to turn it off not long after Raul Duke starts seeing lizards.
It sounds like the worst Cloverfield might do is make you vomit, and JJ Abrams suggests caution in viewing it saying“it is definitely not for everyone and I especially apologize if you threw up on yourself.” If you’re pregnant, on medication, or only like watching really good movies you may want to give Cloverfield a pass.
