Cloverfield is the new monster movie from J.J. Abrams, the producer of Lost (here's the official site). It’s released in the US on January 18 (February 1 in the UK), but seems unlikely to live up to its masterful online marketing campaign, which features numerous interlinked sites, MySpace pages for fictional characters, and endless speculative blog posts.

The first trailer appeared in July – showing a group of young folk having a party in New York, interrupted by an explosion downtown and the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing into their street. It launched a frenzy of geeks hunting for more information. In one frame of the trailer, you see a character wearing a T-shirt which says “Slusho”...

Slusho is a (fictional) Japanese soft drink. You can buy (real) T-shirts and hats from Slusho, which are delivered wrapped in (real) Japanese newspapers. Slusho is made by the (fictional) Tagrauto corporation. In a neat bit of cross-promotion, in the new series of Heroes, electric sex kitten Elle Bishop can be spotted drinking a cup of Slusho.

All this detail is heaven for internet conspiracy theorists – YouTube is full of clips explaining elaborate theories. The most entertaining of these is Norman Coady's pitch for his rock opera based on the story that Manhattan island itself is a huge monster which comes to life.

And the film itself? The only downer in the whole Cloverfield project could be the actual film. The first reviews from early screenings are along the lines of: "It was solid, definitely not great".