Shadow in the Cloud

I remember exactly where I was when I first put on Shadow in the Cloud. It was one of those mid-pandemic Tuesdays where the walls of my apartment felt like they were inching inward, and I was desperately trying to untangle a massive, Gordian knot in my phone charging cable. I never did get that knot out, but for 83 minutes, Roseanne Liang’s high-altitude fever dream made me completely forget I even owned a phone. This is a movie that starts as a claustrophobic, prestige-adjacent thriller and ends as a logic-shredding superhero flick, and honestly? I’m still not entirely sure if the two halves belong on the same planet.

A Radio Play from Hell

The setup is brilliant in its simplicity. We’re in 1943. Chloë Grace Moretz (who I’ve enjoyed since she was punching people as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass) plays Maude Garrett, a flight officer who boards a B-17 Flying Fortress with a top-secret package and a "don’t ask questions" attitude. Because the crew is comprised entirely of human garbage who clearly haven't had a HR seminar in decades, Maude is banished to the ball turret—that cramped, glass bubble hanging off the belly of the plane.

For the first forty minutes, the movie is basically a one-woman show. We stay in the turret with Maude. We hear the crew’s misogynistic banter over the comms, and it’s genuinely skin-crawling. Liang uses the tight space to build incredible tension. You feel every rattle of the fuselage. When Maude spots something—a "gremlin"—scuttling along the wing, nobody believes her. It’s a clever play on the classic Twilight Zone "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" trope, updated with a sharp, contemporary edge regarding how women are silenced in professional spaces. At this point, I thought I was watching a grounded, gritty war drama with a supernatural twist. I was wrong.

Logic has Left the Aircraft

Somewhere around the midway point, Shadow in the Cloud decides that being "grounded" is for losers. The script—originally by Max Landis but heavily reworked by Liang—veers into a territory so absurd that the physics in this movie make Fast & Furious look like a PBS documentary. I’m talking about characters falling out of planes and being blown back in by explosions. I’m talking about Maude performing feats of strength that would make Captain America blush.

This is where the "Contemporary Cinema" context really kicks in. In an era dominated by the MCU's polished, billion-dollar spectacle, there’s something oddly refreshing about a mid-budget movie that just goes absolutely batshit. It feels like a throwback to the 90s DTV era but filmed with modern tech and a neon-soaked synth score by Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper that sounds like it was ripped straight out of a John Carpenter fever dream. It’s the kind of "streaming era" find that probably would have bombed in a traditional 2010 theatrical landscape but found its legs as a "you have to see this to believe it" recommendation on social media.

Making a Monster

Let's talk about the gremlin. In the age of CGI fatigue, I’m always wary of digital monsters, but the creature design here is gnarly. It looks like a hairless, demonic bat-ape that actually has weight to it. When Maude finally goes toe-to-toe with the thing, the practical effects and stunt work (likely handled by the wizardly teams in New Zealand where this was shot) carry a heavy, bone-crunching impact.

The film doesn't have the "legendary" status of a Mad Max: Fury Road, and it’s certainly not trying to be. It’s an 83-minute sprint that knows exactly how long it can hold your attention before you start asking too many questions about how a B-17 actually works. Callan Mulvey (who I remember as the heavy in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and Nick Robinson do what they can with the supporting roles, but they’re mostly there to be yelled at. This is Moretz’s movie, and she sells the absolute hell out of every ridiculous moment with a grit that the script doesn't always deserve.

Shadow in the Cloud is a fascinating "half-forgotten oddity" from the very recent past. It’s a movie of two minds: one half is a sophisticated, feminist thriller about isolation, and the other is a Saturday morning cartoon with a R-rating. It doesn't always stick the landing—in fact, it crashes into the runway and explodes—but the fireball is spectacular to watch. If you’ve got an hour and twenty minutes to kill and a high tolerance for "wait, did she just do that?", it’s a trip worth taking.