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Shadow in the Cloud Movie Review

Shadow in the Cloud is a 2021 action horror film directed by Roseanne Liang and starring Chloe Grace Moretz. It’s a crazy movie that works in most of its disparate ingredients.

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“You have no idea how far I’ll go!“

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While travelling with top-secret documents on a B-17 Flying Fortress, a female WWII pilot encounters an evil presence on board. First and foremost, clearly this movie is based on the famous season 5 episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ called Nightmare at 20.000 Feet, but the creature here is changed to a gremlin. That is only a part of this movie as otherwise it is also a war flick and an action movie.

Most of these elements were meshed rather roughly together into an incoherent, but incredibly entertaining whole. Let’s analyze them separately. As a war movie, the film is clearly not the greatest as it is far from historically accurate. Women weren’t as highly ranked in these positions back then, which is the biggest inaccuracy. But in terms of action, it’s rather fun watching the aerial scenes.

The one-setting movie is my cup of tea, so I loved the claustrophobia that was wringed from this premise. The gremlin itself is incredibly effective at conveying danger and disgust as he is portrayed in a rather “realistic” manner. I loved the ugly design and that it was so high. That final fight between the protagonist and the gremlin was just ridiculous, but it worked as it was undeniably incredibly amusing to watch.

Shadow in the Cloud also benefits from an excellent Chloe Grace Moretz performance. She continues to pick rather interesting roles and here at least she was well used, unlike in the travesty that was this year’s ‘Tom and Jerry’. The men are just there to be pigs, but the sexism angle was ultimately well realized and rather believable for this period.

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That social message angle was actually quite well incorporated into the gremlin proceedings and the gremlin looked great, but the explosions looked so fake. The effects there were shaky to say the least. The movie got progressively silly as it went along, but ultimately I’ve had so much fun watching it.