Super 8

Super 8 (2011) is a science-fiction thriller from J.J. Abrams that you can watch online on iFILM. Steven Spielberg produced it, and his ear for small-town American childhood runs through every scene.

Summer 1979, a quiet Ohio town. A handful of teenagers are shooting a homemade zombie movie on a Super 8 camera when they happen to be at the rail yard the night a train jumps the tracks. The wreck looks staged. Then people start vanishing, car engines die on their own, dogs run off, and the Air Force seals off the county without a word. The local deputy, played by Kyle Chandler, is left to work out what got loose. Newcomer Joel Courtney and a young Elle Fanning carry the leads.

What anchors the film isn't the creature but a first crush, a boy grieving his mother, and a friendship under strain. Abrams built a love letter to late-seventies moviemaking, from grainy amateur footage to a mystery worth chasing. Stream Super 8 (2011) online on iFILM.