It Comes At Night is a 2017 mystery/thriller film directed and written by Trey Edward Shults. The film stars Joel Edgerton, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, and Riley Keough. The film takes place in a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world. A man who has established a tenuous domestic order with his wife and son are put to test when a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge.
Wow.. that was my initial reaction to this film, and to be honest with you, I was pretty amazed that this film was even that good. Out of everything that I had read and seen about this film (pre-release), it looked like complete garbage. Granted, I also said that another film that I fell in love with, and that was Ex Machina, which turned out to be one of my all time favorite films, and 2014’s Movie of the Year choice. So in turn, what made me flip from garbage to greatness? Well, a lot of things.
To start things off, this film gives you absolutely nothing to work with. The opening of this film is extremely dark and leaves the audience with questions and zero exposition, and I was perfectly fine with that. The thing that this movie does so well is build tension and suspense, and the way the film goes about it is absolutely perfect. A lot people spoke negatively about the lack of expositional narrative throughout the beginning parts of the film, as audiences today are so incredibly passive that they rely heavily on exposition and narrative to be hand fed to them when the best thing a screen writer can do is make the plot as active and unpredictable as possible. What I mean by this is that you, the viewer, are constantly trying to figure out what is going on just like the main character, while in passive films you’re just there for the ride and watch mindlessly at the way each predictable event unfolds.
So that’s one thing that this film does great, but it isn’t the only thing. This film has a stellar cast, and although a lot of them you’ve probably never heard of, I can almost guarantee you that you will see Hollywood pick up these actors for future films in no time. My favorite of the bunch has to be Kelvin Harrison Jr. as he absolutely kills it in this film. His character not only represents the audience perfectly, but he also does an amazing job pushing his own emotions through to film’s viewers to the point where you almost feel like you’re in his shoes. Granted that’s mainly due to this film’s great writing, but Kelvin Harrison Jr. is also credible for that as well. Joel Edgerton is fantastic as always, and Riley Keough.. holy crap! there is a scene that I obviously won’t spoil, where this girl takes acting to a whole new level. How is this girl not a household name already? Every person in this film is beyond fantastic, and really adds to what makes this film so great.
What kind of confused me at first was how they shot this film. In the beginning and a lot of the low light specific scenes it almost feels like they shot this movie in film. Although my sources deny that claim, it is still pretty impressive since it did a really good job at fooling me. I guess that leads me into another great aspect of this movie which is its cinematography. This film is beautifully shot, and features some great moments that would blow even the most film-centric fans away. It Comes at Night has some great long takes that just help build tension like Kubrick’s The Shining. I guess that’s another thing that blew me away, and that was that suspense builds more so in the form of visuals rather than via sound. Sure the sound was great in this film, but it was by no means the main contributor to suspense in this film.
Speaking of suspense, this film nails it. The cinematography gives an up close look at its thriller genre, and its sound design and lack of (at times) soundtrack leave the audience gasping for air at even the most brightly lit scenes. That’s what this film does so well, to be honest. It scares you but not in the standard way that horror usually does. It stress you out, builds up tension, and then releases it in the form of emotion, not with dumb jump scares. The best way to describe this film’s tone is with the word dread. I’ll be honest with you, this film has no closure in it. It leaves you guessing and wanting more, and more importantly, it leaves you with a sense of dread and confusion.
Like I’ve stated in many of my reviews, no movie is without sin (actually CinemaSins said that) and this film is by no means perfect either. The main issue that I had with this film was with its marketing of all things. This film was a great thriller film, but it was marketed as a horror of sorts. The trailers made it seem like it was going to be another crappy horror film while in turn it was a fantastic psychological thriller. So why is this an issue? Well the issue mainly deals with the people who will end up going to see this film. The types of people that are horror fanatics just want to be scared. They don’t care about story or deep naratives, they just want to be scared shitless, and that’s not what this movie does. This movie is a thought provoking film with no satisfying ending or poop-your-pants scares, and that seemed to really turn people off from this beautiful piece of art.
Although this turned out to be another one of my favorite films this year, this also proved to be another one of those films that most people will let slip by. In the end It Comes at Night was a fantastic thriller that featured a great cast, an original story, beautiful cinematics, and a thought provoking ending that will leave people searching for answers in any way that they can find. So with that in mind, I decided to give It Comes at Night a “Very Good” on theVade Review Bar. This is a film that doesn’t come at night, but out of the blue, and will never let you know what It is truly about.
