WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Shadow in the Cloud, now available in select theaters, VOD and digital.
Roseanne Liang's Shadow in the Clouds pits Chloë Grace Moretz's Maude against all kinds of dangers. For starters, there are threats one would expect to see in a WWII movie, such as having her plane shot down. Then, there's the danger of falling, a very real threat for Maude in a thrilling scene that ends with her being saved from falling to her doom in an outrageous way. However, by the time the movie ends, the biggest threat to Maude and her team ended up being a gremlin.
One of the most fascinating elements in Shadow in the Clouds is the gremlin that wreaks havoc on The Fool's Errand. Introduced in the movie's opening cartoon, most moviegoers will associate gremlins with furry monsters from the '80, but the creature seen in this movie has been a part of folklore for generations.
The term gremlin originated among members of the British Royal Air Force in the early half of the twentieth century, with the creatures being used as an explanation whenever an airplane was mysteriously damaged. In most cases, it was used to deflect blame away from a pilot or another member of the crew. Soon after, the gremlin's use in folklore began to move beyond just aviation, with several WWII-era posters released urging workers to mind their surroundings for little creatures.
The phenomenon was perpetuated further by British author Roald Dahl. A member of the Royal Air Force, Dahl used the mythical creatures in writing his first children's book, The Gremlins. Nearly turned into a Disney feature film, his book saw gremlins seeking revenge for deforestation done by humans.
One of the most famous on-screen depictions of gremlins came in a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone. The infamous "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" saw William Shatner as a terrorized passenger on an airplane being ripped apart by a gremlin. Just like in Shadow in the Cloud, part of the terror of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is that no one believes the main character. This story was later remade as a segment in 1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie.
Shadow in the Cloud, directed by Roseanne Liang and starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith and Callan Mulvey, is now available in select theaters, VOD and digital.