Review of It Comes at Night (2017) by Thequietgamer — 07 Oct 2018

There are plenty of other movies out there that have used a post-apocalyptic setting to remind us that the real monsters are people. Few of them have been as effective at playing off of our paranoia the way It Comes at Night does. It's a look into the mind of desperation so tense that it may just drive you insane.

There are so many strange happenings that never get explained. What did the dog see in the woods? How did the kid end up in another room? Who did open that door? This kind of thing may frustrate those who obsess over knowing every little detail, but getting caught up in the mystery is part of the movie's dark magic. There's a feeling of something else going on other than the "can I trust these other survivors?" scenario. Possibly something supernatural. Even I felt a little frustrated by the lack of answers by the time the credits rolled, but the moment-to-moment unease and powerful ending more than made up for it.

This is one of those rare movies along the lines of The Blair Witch Project that allows us to scare ourselves. It feels like so much is happening off-screen. Just over that next hill out of our view. Watching characters standoff with something that both we and they can't actually see causes the imagination to run wild. You give yourself the nightmares here. Trey Edward Shults just provides the reasons to distrust everything that is and isn't in front of you. Mostly thanks to the stellar cinematography from Drew Daniels. The ways the camera moves down hallways and corners elongates them and their shadows. At times the movie feels and looks like a horror movie from the '70s or '80s encased in a more modern struggle for survival story.

The nightmare sequences are the film's few normal attempts at freaking you out as they give you something frightening to look at. They're also one of the driving factors behind the bleak coming-of-age story that ties into (and might actually be) the main plot. Acting as manifestations of young Travis' (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) fears, desires, and growing distrust of and anger towards his father. Watching him struggle with the harsh things his parents must do in order for them all to survive is a key factor of the experience.

It Comes at Night uses the unknown to become something more than your standard post-apocalyptic tale about the evils that lurk inside us all. We have reason to fear the people in the house as well as whatever it is lurking in the woods just outside. Then there's the ending that will stick with you long after the credits have rolled. A tour de force of self-induced anxiety and edge-of-your-seat tension that is only slightly marred by the occasional MacGuffin.