It Comes At Night

I thought this would be a home invasion style horror movie, or perhaps a thriller, as some of the reviews I had read before watching the film questioned if it should be classified as a horror movie (in my mind it should, though it has definite thriller elements). It isn’t, or at least, it is not only a home invasion film, as that aspect, while visited a few times in the film, was more metaphorical almost than limited just to creatures or people invading a home. In the end, the home invasion is either disease or perhaps really ultimately death.The setting is sparse, not a lot is explained, but I didn’t mind that at all, as the film focuses on one family at first, later on two families, avoids info dumps, and shows rather than tells. The world has been ravaged by a highly contagious fatal disease that leaves lots of obvious signs – including the eyes – of a person being infected. One family, the family that starts out the film, lives miles and miles from anywhere in a rather labyrinthine, dark cabin in the woods, a father (Paul), mother (Sarah, Paul’s wife), teenage son (Travis), and a grandfather (Bud, Sarah’s father). In the first few moments of the film we see that Bud is mentally gone and about done for physically thanks to the disease, with very early in the first few moments Travis and Paul performing a mercy killing on Bud and burning his body. The sad family goes back to their dark cavernous cabin, not going out at night unless it is an absolute emergency, with only one door in and out of their cabin.Except the very next night someone is trying to enter the cabin. It is zombies? We don’t know enough at this point to rule out zombies as it is never explicitly stated zombies were NOT possible. Having read and watched enough post-apocalyptic movies, normal humans are more than dangerous enough when law and order have gone extinct and people are desperate for food, shelter, guns, and in the case of the man coming through the locked door in the middle of the night, water.We meet Will (though we don’t learn his name immediately), and Paul is forced quickly to decide what to do with the man. Kill him out of hand? If not kill him, then what? Is he infected? Is he alone? Can he be useful? Can he be trusted? Though the decision – for now – is made to trust Will and bring in his family (which felt to me as much a way to verify Paul’s story as anything), there is still on-going paranoia in the background between the two families. Did Paul and his wife Kim leave any thing out of their story? Can they really be trusted not to murder Paul, Sarah, and Travis in the middle of the night or abscond with much needed supplies? Were they or their young son Andrew infected?The dark woods during the day (away from the more open area around the cabin) and pretty much all of outside at night is a character in and of itself. The forest and the darkness conceal the cabin but also hide whatever dangers are out there. Are there more dangerous people out there, men with guns, wanting to murder the two families? Are infected people on the way to the cabin, perhaps (maybe like Will) having been alerted to the cabin’s presence by the funeral pyre of Bud? Is it something else? When the family dog goes chasing something in the woods, something unseen, it feels like anything can be out in those deep, dark, wild woods, something unknown, unknowable, and deeply dangerous.Add the excellent cinematography, of Travis or Paul looking down a long dark corridor at the one door outside, bereft of windows and with a single inadequate electric lantern or flashlight, the dark, twisty, subterranean feeling layout of the cabin, and the extremely dark horrific nightmares Travis has of being infected, the film definitely builds up a real sense of dread of both what is outside the cabin, the larger world that is only just hinted at, and how much of this horror that Will, Kim, and Andrew brought in with them, whether they meant to or not.I will caution the movie at the end is very grim and almost hard to watch, not in terms of gore or blood or violence, though it is that, but in terms of pure anguish and grief (kudos to the actor who portrayed this, it was raw and very believable though debatable if it was fun to watch, though I acknowledge the skill in writing, acting, and directing).The movie sort of reminded me of a much more somber, believable, updated version of “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, especially the last line, “"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” I hope that is not a spoiler and there were a number of differences – neither Will’s family or Paul’s family are Prince Prospero and his noblemen friends, nor is there any sort of opulent masquerade or ball going on (though its seems in one scene Travis draws what look like masked figures in a forest) – but there are clear to me any way similarities. It’s definitely a somber film with moments of terror and horror. It is certainly well made and I am glad I saw it.It was a well made movie though the ending was a downer, I hope that is not too much of a spoiler, the ending really sticking with me, not in terms of horror or terror but sadness.

The interaction and acting of the characters involved is great. It is a movie about paranoia and not knowing who to trust, however, it doesn't fully deliver on that.There are great scenes that lend to this idea, such as the drinking scene between Will and Paul, or the table scene after they find Stanley. After this, there isn't much. Both families are putting themselves first, of course, but even though Will and Kim may be hiding something, Paul and Sarah are almost always in the wrong of things.Everyone was on the same page in the final interaction except for Paul and Sarah. While Will was hiding the gun and maybe more, that is not enough to result to what occurred. Everything seemed to be going okay in the middle, which suggested something would become amiss, but when the problem was a clear one and 2/3 of the cast had the same solution in mind, the two left standing are left morally in the wrong.This coupled with the situation with Stanley and the two men in the woods being seemingly unconnected to anything makes this movie feel incomplete. It could have severely benefited from an additional 30 mins or so.All in all, great characters and premise, but bad execution due to either short runtime, not blurring real events and paranoia enough or maybe even misplaced expectations.

For years, I have been searching for the kind of horror film that is so scary that it could potentially give me nightmares, one which is similar to the likes of PET SEMATARY (1989) and CANDYMAN (1992), the only two horror movies which had ever truly scared the holy hell out of me as a young kid when I was around 7 or 8.But of course, leave it to the studio A24 to manage to rekindle such old fears within me: That being a film of theirs, IT COMES at NIGHT, a post–apocalyptic psychological horror film about a family who has isolated themselves in a small house in a large forest during the midst of a lethal viral pandemic which seems to have ravaged across the world and killed many. On one random night, the family ends up encountering another family who is seeking food and water. Despite initially being distrustful of each other, both families decide to work together and survive, much to surprisingly good results. But as time progresses, their fragile truce begins to break and shatter like glass as the paranoia and threat of the plague begins to set back in, setting both families on a collision course.Despite what the title seems to suggest, there is no monster, it mainly implies the fear and paranoia of possibly catching the plague and becoming infected. It is certainly one of the creepiest horror films in recent years, and mostly definitely one of the most criminally underrated from the A24 studio, who have once again shown that they can create an amazing horror film that can truly terrify us down to our bones. There were several scary moments that really creeped me out so much, so much so that they even ended up rekindling old fears I hadn't felt in almost at least two decades since PET SEMATARY and CANDYMAN.And what's crazier, this movie feels even more relevant now, in light of the recent COVID–19 pandemic, especially when the government started asking us to stay at home more often and avoid public travelling. This movie perfectly displays how the fear of catching a virus is much more contagious than the virus itself. In addition, this film's claustrophobic setting and paranoia tone is very reminiscent of John Carpenter's THE THING (1982) and even Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING (1980), which is a welcoming thing to watch in such a horror film. What I also love most is how this movie never shows what is happening in the outside world, we are only mostly told that it had been getting very bad and people started evacuating from cities. We only follow the main family through their perspective.Overall, I would highly recommend IT COMES at NIGHT because it is one of those kinds of horror films that does not require an actual monster or graphic gore to scare its audience, it's the kind that trusts its audience with patience, very much like every other film from the A24 studio, something which they intend to continue on doing, as shown in the recent trailer for Alex Garland's new film MEN.

I didn't even wanna give this 1 star, wish there were zero star's. What the biggest pile of shit i have ever watched. Soooooooo slow. Story was weird, i didn't get the ending and nothing was explained to how it started. How the hell this got 80 odd percent on rotton tomatoes is beyond me. Now i love my film's, all sorts of film's, but THIS is just crap.

This film does have a lot going for it, but in other ways it disappointed a little.This is not really a horror film, despite what the trailer may indicate. This film is about tension and paranoia and the result is disturbing. It does those things extremely well. The first few minutes will leave you feeling uneasy.I thought the actors were good. It's a well shot movie, but just wasn't quite what I was expecting.

Was really expecting a fright given the reviews but not that good.

excellent

Zuerst muss man dazu sagen: Der Film wurde schlichtweg falsch vermarktet. Ich habe, bevor ich ihn mir angesehen habe, zuerst ein paar Rezensionen gelesen und wusste schließlich: Okay, es handelt sich eher um eine Mischung aus Drama und Thriller in einem apokalyptischen Setting.Und mit der Einstellung wurde ich auch wirklich nicht enttäuscht. Ich habe mit den Charakteren mitgefiebert, die durch die ausgewählten Schauspieler sehr gut verkörpert wurden! Außerdem hat mir die Atmosphäre des Films gut gefallen. Ruhig, beklemmend aber dennoch kam Spannung auf durch die immer mehr aufkommenden Konflikte. Und es gab auch den ein oder anderen Schreck-Moment, jedoch war der Film davon nicht überladen.Ich würde "It Comes At Night" auf jeden Fall weiterempfehlen.