That's a Chicago guy fleeing a giant beastie in New York in "Cloverfield."

Star Michael Stahl-David, 25, has a confession. When he was growing up in Lakeview -- "right behind Ann Sather's" -- he thought monster movies were cheesy.

The genre "wasn't my cup of tea, the pulpiness," the North Sider said in a long-distance chat before "Cloverfield's" Wednesday premiere in Los Angeles.

"Now I think, 'It's cheesy, but that's the point. It's fun'. I'm proud to say our movie isn't like that, though. With the pulp movies, you're outside of it, you comment, you watch the explosions like fireworks. With us, you're running through the subway tunnels with us and trying to survive with us. It's intimate, but extremely intense.

"When the sh - - hits the fan, the pace is relentless," he said.

Director Matt Reeves, whose PG-13 scarefest bows nationwide today, cast the little-known actor as Rob Hawkins, a Japan-bound designer whose farewell party is crashed by a skyscraper-high monster. The 20something buttonholes a vidcam-toting pal (T.J. Miller) and narrates an eyewitness account to leave for posterity. "If you are watching this, you probably know more about it than I do," he tells the camera. His friends are as pro-active, snapping images with cell phones as the monster wastes Manhattan.

The gang's instincts are reflexive in the media-saturated era, Stahl-David believes. "That's how news reaches us," the actor said. "We all have the devices. Having immediate access to YouTube has really changed life. ... When something big goes down, people have that impulse to document it."

The film -- destined to evoke memories of Sept. 11 -- owe debts to "The Blair Witch Project," the "Godzilla" franchise and savvy marketing. "Lost" creator-turned-producer J.J. Abrams hitched a grainy trailer to "Transformers" last year that show Lady Liberty's head rolling down a street. A cyber-campaign followed.

The monster -- which is "big, terrifying and fast" -- was added digitally to fleeing-mob scenes. For the infamous trailer, the F/X team fired "a tiny little rocket on a string" down the street amid crashing cars "and people going, 'Whaaaaaaaaaaa,' " Stahl-David recalled.

The actor, who once hawked T-shirts outside Wrigley Field, honed his art at the Goodman, Steppenwolf and Victory Gardens theaters. He relocated to New York after graduating from Columbia College in 2005 and appeared in the short-lived NBC series "The Black Donnellys." He made his off-Broadway debut last fall in "The Overwhelming."

Spotted

Yes, that was pop star Ashlee Simpson and Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz enjoying a cozy dinner Saturday at Harry Caray's. Simpson ordered the filet mignon and baked potato, her beau had spaghetti and meatballs, and Wentz's father joined the tete-a-tete. Fall Out Boy formed in Wilmette in 2001.