Cloverfield: All 3 Hidden Monster Movie Easter Eggs Explained

Matt Reeves’s Cloverfield features three iconic monster Easter eggs that are carefully spliced in during pivotal moments of the horror movie – here are each of them explained. While the city of New York is plagued with its own invasive beast, the filmmaker took the opportunity to give nods to some of the most influential creatures to ever grace the silver screen. They appear in the blink of an eye, but their importance to Cloverfield is immense, as they showcase just how severe the monster’s destruction will be on the world.

Cloverfield is the first movie in the franchise, and premiered in 2008. While it seemed as if there wouldn’t be a follow-up to the immensely successful J. J. Abrams produced found footage horror movie, 10 Cloverfield Lane released eight years later, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3) and John Goodman (The Big Lebowski). It wasn’t long until the third movie made an unexpected premiere in 2018 under the name The Cloverfield Paradox. Each installment expands on the events that took place during Cloverfield as well as its complex monster that can travel through space and time.

As the monster – referred to as Clover – tears apart New York City, other monstrous creatures make brief appearances; these beasts have capabilities and strengths comparable to the Cloverfield monster. While it may seem that Reeves included Them!, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and King Kong to pay homage to sci-fi horror’s greatest monsters, they are actually used in order to emphasize the severity of Clover’s destruction as well as its power, especially during the instances when they show up in the movie. Whether they’re climbing the Empire State Building or rising from the ocean’s deepest, darkest trenches, all three monsters converged to help create the horrors of Cloverfield. 

At timestamp 24:06, the nuclear monster from Them! appears right before a previously recorded video plays of Bet McIntyre (Odette Yustman) talking to Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) about moving to Japan. This ties in two very important aspects of the overall franchise. First, it equates the Cloverfield monster to a nuclear creature, which is then perpetuated in 10 Cloverfield Lane. Them! released in 1954, which was the same year that the US tested nuclear weaponry at Bikini Atoll. This is a clever Easter egg, as it references the second world war’s nuclear history and adds an extra element to the movie’s monster before the sequel had the chance.

As Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) and Hud (T. J. Miller) walk the subway tunnels under New York City, the 45:27 timestamp features The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Just like the creature from Them!, the 1953 movie monster – a fictional Rhedosaurus – is atomic/nuclear. While they aren’t 20,000 fathoms below sea-level, they are walking underneath the city of New York, which was the Rhedosaurus’s original stomping ground. The faces of the subway creatures that attack the group resemble that of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. By including this Easter egg, Reeves further connects the nuclear aspects of his monster and pays homage by featuring those that resemble it.

The final horror movie creature Easter egg is KingKong, who appears at 1:06:55. As the group runs through the city, they see the creature stomping over tanks and helicopters flying overhead. A few moments later, the Cloverfield monster attacks a helicopter, just like Kong attacked a plane. The gorilla is the only non-nuclear sci-fi creature, but he is just as ancient as the others. Ultimately, these three iconic sci-fi horror movie creatures were spliced into Cloverfield to pay homage to them while also utilizing their origins to create Reeves’s own unique monster and set-up the future of the franchise.

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