At Redbox and streaming: “Shadow in the Cloud”

In 1943, Warner Bros. legendary cartoon director Bob Clampett brought to the screen a phenomena of WWII: the gremlin.

It was a popular idea among military personnel that if something went wrong it wasn’t due to human error but to a supernatural little beast called a gremlin.

In “Falling Hare,” Bug Bunny, who usually has the upper hand in every cartoon, had problems containing a gremlin intent on sabotaging an airplane. It’s a very funny short and it’s up on YouTube.

Most people when they hear the word “gremlin” think of the classic horror comedy by director Joe Dante. This new film “Shadow in the Cloud” restores the WWII original meaning to the word.  

Director Roseanne Liang opens her film with an original cartoon that is a homage to the “Private SNAFU” cartoons made during WWII and shown to members of the military exclusively. The cartoons were educational efforts to teach people some important basics of military life. Again, check them out on YouTube.

In this case, the new animation is a warning about gremlins.

Set in the South Pacific, Chloë Grace Moretz plays a flyer who boards a bomber destined for a non-combat mission from its base in New Zealand. She tells the crew her name is Maude Garrett and that she must accompany them to deliver something confidential in a rectangular leather case. She can’t discuss her mission.

The crew is suspicious of her, but her papers appear to be genuine and she’s allowed to stay aboard, but is told to sit in the lower ball gun turret. Listening to the crew talk about her, she realizes she is in a hostile situation.

That situation become more perilous when she discovers she can’t get out of the turret and she sees some animal crawling on the wing. That beast – it looks like a mutated bat – attacks her in the turret.

Naturally the crew is not impressed, although when she shoots down a Japanese fighter they didn’t see, they give her a little respect.

From this point out the film’s plot becomes a series of outrageous revelations and action sequences. To reveal more of the plot would be a disservice to you. I want you to have the same slack-jawed reaction to the film that I did, if you choose to watch this film.

Moretz is the star of this film and she is in every scene. You probably remember her as “Hit Girl” from “Kick Ass.” She has shown an interest in off-beat and independent productions and certainly this film falls into both categories.

About a third of the film has Moretz’s character stuck in the ball turret. It’s easy to spot that this was undoubtedly a way to reduce the budget of the film. What makes this part of the film work as well as it does is her performance of a tough young woman who is determined to see through her mission.

There are moments in the film in terms of action that are absolutely over-the-top. In fact in all of my years as a movie lover there have been relatively few “mainstream” films that are so outrageous in story content.

Some viewers might look at this film as pretty silly with its combination of human drama, WWII flying action and horror, but its very outrageousness in combining these elements is what intrigues me about it.  

“Shadow in the Clouds” is a heck of a ride.