The most batshit crazy movie we saw last year? Filmmaker Roseanne Liang’s “Shadow In The Cloud” WWII actioner starring Chloë Grace Moretz that’s a mishmash blend of so many different and disparate movies. “Shadow In The Clouds” borrows from horror, WWII, aviation movies, action, claustrophobic thriller, and even a little bit of espionage.
Co-starring Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall, Joe Witkowski, Byron Coll, to name a few, “Shadow In The Clouds,” is ostensibly about—at first— a WWII pilot who is put on a plane last minute with a typically misogynistic all-male crew. Their distrust of her, their sexism, and the way she has to shout to be heard in even the most basic of asks, could be a movie enough. But something is lurking about on this plane, and “Shadow In The Cloud” soon turns into an insane mid-air action thriller and a monster movie that defies gravity and is largely bananas.
READ MORE: WTF? ‘Shadow In The Cloud’ Is A Relentlessly Schizophrenic Mess Of A Movie [TIFF Review]
Much of this is because, the original script was written by the now-disgraced screenwriter Max Landis. He might be an odious figure—and Liang rewrote some of the script—but he’s hard to argue that he doesn’t write really insane and chaotic mash-up like movies.
Here’s the official synopsis:
In the throes of World War II, Captain Maude Garrett (CHLOË GRACE MORETZ) joins the all-male crew of a B-17 bomber with a top-secret package. Caught off guard by the presence of a woman on a military flight, the crew tests Maude’s every move. Just as her quick wit is winning them over, strange happenings and holes in her backstory incite paranoia surrounding her true mission. But this crew has more to fear…lurking in the shadows, something sinister is tearing at the heart of the plane. Trapped between an oncoming air ambush and an evil lurking within, Maude must push beyond her limits to save the hapless crew and protect her mysterious cargo.
Vertical Entertainment will release “Shadow In The Cloud” in select theaters and VOD and digital on January 1, 2021. It’s not necessarily for everyone (our reviewer haaaated it), but it’s undeniably, at the very least, a very wild, and hilariously absurd ride. Watch the first trailer below.