All the horrors that films manufacture in films are packed in this one. There are 2 types of horror, one that evokes emotions that are internal and individualistic in nature and the other external where the emotion is of the collective nature, where we are forced to empathise with the entire world. The first three fourth of the film has end of the world, single woman, psycho fat man, trashy young man (cannot tell between south and north korea and refers to them as the good and bad korea), chains, narrow ducts to crawl into and with zombies outside.
Three people stuck in a well stocked bunker and the end of the world outside. The owner of the bunker is Mr. Goodman who menaces and screams for apathy at once. The size of the man is intimidating and within the closed space he makes excellent use of it. We realise the reality of the outside through the lady stuck with him. she wakes up from an accident and she (and we) needs some telling about the end of the world. We vacillate from belief to disbelief along with the lady. Eventually we get over the disbelief and accept the truth not before we get drawn into the drama around the young white man. The character of Mr. Goodman is detailed and he carries many hues with him, possibly because he is an actor versatility. The other two are competent from a holllywood perspective but don't carry too much of other nuances.
The second type horror is typified mostly with the alien invasion device and usually the aliens are evil, wicked and all they care about is destroying cities and devouring humans. The final one fourth of the film turns to become this type.
in spite of the predictable devices and clever plot, 10 Cloverfield lane is a fine film sandwiched between all the horrors that humans invented using the moving image.