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Meet the young director of '10 Cloverfield Lane,' out of Cheltenham High and Temple

If you look hard enough around the kitchen of John Goodman's survivalist bunker in 10 Cloverfield Lane, you may spot the little bit of hometown Philadelphia that the director, Dan Trachtenberg, planted.

Director Dan Trachtenberg (right) on the set of "10 Cloverfield Lane" with John Goodman. The 34-year-old studied at Temple before going to Hollywood, where he made TV commercials and an online short before J.J. Abrams tapped him for the feature.
Director Dan Trachtenberg (right) on the set of "10 Cloverfield Lane" with John Goodman. The 34-year-old studied at Temple before going to Hollywood, where he made TV commercials and an online short before J.J. Abrams tapped him for the feature.Read moreMICHELE K. SHORT / Paramount

If you look hard enough around the kitchen of John Goodman's survivalist bunker in 10 Cloverfield Lane, you may spot the little bit of hometown Philadelphia that the director, Dan Trachtenberg, planted.

The what-just-happened-here? abduction tale, with a terrific Mary Elizabeth Winstead as captive to Goodman's character, is set in Louisiana farm country. But Trachtenberg, who grew up in the Upper Moreland/Willow Grove neck of the woods, felt compelled to add Tastykakes to the provisions.

"They might not be noticeable, they might not be in focus, but they're back there," Trachtenberg said, laughing, on the phone from Los Angeles. "I was anxious to include that. Living in L.A., I'm always craving Tastykakes, and when I meet someone from the East Coast, especially from around Philly, we always geek out about Tastykakes."

There are other Philly connections in 10 Cloverfield Lane, a successor of sorts to 2008's found-footage sci-fi hit Cloverfield, both overseen by box-office titan J.J. Abrams.

John Gallagher Jr., who hails from Wilmington, is the third actor in the movie's stagelike stew of horror, suspense, and mystery. And Bradley Cooper (you've heard of him, right?) lends his voice to one of 10 Cloverfield Lane's establishing scenes. As Winstead's Michelle is driving out of town, having broken up with her boyfriend after an epic fight, the guy, Ben, calls her iPhone. That's the Silver Linings Playbook star entreating her to come back.

"J.J. brought Bradley up because they did Alias together," Trachtenberg says. "So, yes, very cool."

Trachtenberg, who went to Cheltenham High and majored in film at Temple University before heading west, says he and Cooper barely had time to talk. Cooper's gig was "so last-minute . . . but at some point, hopefully, we'll be able to get together and connect the dots."

10 Cloverfield Lane, which opened Friday on the heels of a savvy viral marketing campaign, is Trachtenberg's feature directing debut.

After working on Internet shows, on a clutch of TV commercials (Coke, Lexus, Nike), and on the 2011 short Portal: No Escape (17 million-plus YouTube views), Trachtenberg came close to directing a science-fiction heist movie called Crime of the Century. But the project, from Fast & Furious producer Chris Morgan, hit some bumps. Then Abrams offered Trachtenberg 10 Cloverfield Lane, which represented exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make.

(Abrams was shooting Star Wars: The Force Awakens while Trachtenberg was shooting 10 Cloverfield Lane. There was a lot of email counsel.)

"It felt like the answer to all the times that I would go see a movie and then in the car right after you'd say to your friends, or think to yourself, 'Wouldn't it be awesome if at some point in the movie this happened?' And this [screenplay] was doing it. Finally, a movie that did that thing that you talked about!"

Making movies is something Trachtenberg, 34, has wanted to do since he was, well, 3. That's when his mom helped him make a Star Wars video, using action figures, toys, and kitchen utensils.

"I remember being so disappointed that it looked nothing like Star Wars," he says. "To this day, that's the itch that I continue to scratch: It's a constant battle - how do you get the thing that you're seeing in your head to end up on screen in the way that you envision it? It really is that same feeling. . . . It's still there."

There are, in fact, kitchen utensils in 10 Cloverfield Lane. But this time they're in context, and in Goodman's hands they serve a more menacing purpose.

"John Goodman is like the Jackie Chan of acting," Trachtenberg says. "Any prop that you put in front of him, he's going to take advantage of it in some peculiar way."

Trachtenberg heads back to Philadelphia a few times a year. His parents still live here. He'll still go to the Regal Warrington Crossing multiplex - although it was at the Barn Cinema, and then the Regal Huntington Valley, both defunct, where he spent the better part of his youth.

His older brother, David, is a film editor in Los Angeles (he did Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and likewise a Temple alum. When Dan was in the film program, he would augment his studies with trips west.

"I was lucky. My brother was out in Los Angeles editing commercials," Trachtenberg says. "So I didn't just rely on Temple for film school, I worked out here in the industry all through my college life."

Besides Star Wars, the other formative blockbuster in his life was Jaws, which still leaves him awestruck. Steven Spielberg remains a hugely influential, inspirational figure.

"Jaws really represents everything I love about movies," he says. "One of the reasons I was excited to make this movie is because, like Jaws, I never really saw it as a horror movie. For me, Jaws is much more of an adventure movie, but when it's scary it's terrifying, when it's funny it's hilarious, when there's drama it's the most sincere stuff on screen, when there's adventure there's swashbuckle. It's all those things.

"And I'm excited that I got to make a movie that could be all those things, as well."

With Tastykakes, too.

srea@phillynews.com215-854-5629

@Steven_Rea