Merrick here...

Okay, to be very clear here, I rather liked CLOVERFIELD. It's far from a perfect movie...and there's some pretty dopey stuff in it to be sure. But I think it worked pretty well as a whole, and more or less nailed everything it set out to accomplish. It's solid work with some truly wonderful moments.

This said, one element of the film really irritated me: how it handled/presented its "monster". The movie's publicity coyly kept the creature from us...showing little-to-nothing at all. Which, of course, made for more anticipation when we sat down in theaters. Problem is: there wasn't a payoff for this anticipation in the movie itself. There was no "reveal" to speak of...nothing which made the months and months of guessing & second guessing this design or that design worthwhile.

The film worked...but in this particular regard it felt like a bait and switch. ESPECIALLY since our characters...being followed by a video camera throughout the entire movie...were clearly in a position to see that which the audience was not being shown. A little too much of a tease, perhaps?

And, oddly enough, no accurate images showing (what little we saw of) the creature escaped onto the Internet subsequent to the film's release. As recently as a few weeks ago, Talkbackers were complaining that they still didn't have a clear sense of what the "monster" looked like.

Today that changed. Later this year, Hasbro will release a $99 (you read that right) megatoy based on the CLOVERFIELD creature. The Hasbro site was updated with images of the toy today, allowing our first clear sense of the creature's entirety.

This could still be considered something of a SPOILER, so don't click on this link if you want to preserve the mystique!

SEE IT HERE!!!

I realize that CLOVERFIELD is not about iconography, but I'm still underwhelmed by this design...and wonder if that's one of the reasons it was kept so obscured in the film. It's certainly frightening in motion, but there's nothing that embeds the beat image in my consciousness as "terrifying" or unpleasant just by looking at it. It looks like one of this things I used to incinerate with my electric fly swatter when they buzzed the lamp in my living room.

That's just my opinion, though. What do you think?

THANKS to all the readers who sent in this link. Appreciated!