J.J. Abrams’s Cloverfield-esque ’70s Alien Movie Is Cloverfield But with Aliens in the ’70s

The news broke earlier this week that director J.J. Abrams had another secret trailer attached to Iron Man 2, and here it is in surprisingly good bootleg form. Although Cloverfield-like — in that the movie is about some kids who are filming the events as they happen, although it happens in the ’70s with a Super 8 camera, hence the title Super 8 — it has nothing to do with Cloverfield. Instead, this about an alien that apparently gets loose in Ohio, and it’s supposedly an homage to ’70s Steven Spielberg movies. I like the ’70s conceit and the Spielbergianness, but for some reason, strong aliens don’t creep me out. Strong aliens are just monsters, and it’s regular aliens I find creepy — E.T., the critters from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc. A strong alien will punch you until you die, which sucks, but is quick and normal. A regular alien is assumably smart, and will capture for god-knows-what for god-knows-how-long — that’s what kept me up at night worrying about alien abduction as a kid.