Review of It Comes at Night (2017) by Arthur G — 22 Jul 2017
My favourite flavour of downbeat existentialist horror has to be tragic downbeat existentialist horror.
Writer director Trey Edward Shults has delivered exactly that with his second feature, It Comes At Night. He might, though, have called it "They Leave At Night." My late viewing was studded by walkouts.
I assume they wanted to be entertained. They were in the wrong place. This was not entertainment. It was not agreeable. It was not a diversion. It afforded no pleasure.
When scrambling for adjectives I flirted with pitiless. But that describes better Schults' attitude to his audience than to his characters, who are handled with solicitude even as they are driven to terrible acts.
The audience is dealt with more severely. Whether you leave half way or as the credits roll, you have to ask why you watched. What do you get from a film like this? Some kind of release? A freedom? From guilt?
The title may be a nod to David Robert Mitchell's It Follows. Both feast on the moral vacuum. But where It Follows is shot with humour; and comforts the viewer with its affection for Mitchell's 80s childhood; Shults offers no warmth beyond the chiaroscuro depth of each shot.
Without detracting from the rest of the cast, each of whom occupy their roles with fluttering pathos, the film is built entirely on Joel Edgerton's face.
Hooded eyes work on the big screen. Humphrey Bogart, Patrick Stewart, Kurt Russell. Now Edgerton commands the audience with glances that break our understanding of emotion; that show guilt and innocence at once; pity and greed; fear and indulgence.
A peculiar flaw can sometimes be seen in computer games, where two objects occupy exactly the same space at the same time and the rendering engine flickers between them, showing both, showing broken reality. It is called Z fighting (two planes at the same point on the Z axis).
Perhaps that is what a great actor offers; a canvas of Z fighting expressions. A moment on the parabola of uncertainty. A moment before the hero's father shoots a child in the back. Fear comes at night. Consequence is witnessed under watery sun.
The closing shot is somehow a soft landing. Two human beings seeking hope, understanding, connection. It is just enough. A triumph.
This review of It Comes at Night (2017) was written by Arthur G on 22 Jul 2017.
It Comes at Night has generally received positive reviews.
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