Review of It Comes at Night (2017) by Michael E — 02 Sep 2017

It Comes at Night is a fantastic suspenseful drama that I highly reccomend to anyone as long as they don't go in expecting a horror movie. Despite the marketing this is in not a horror movie it's a drama and a great one at that.

The film boasts fantastic acting, especially from Joel Edgerton, from a largely unknown cast. The directing from relative newcomer Trey Edward Shults is brilliant. The film is so suspenseful and does an amazing job at getting right under your skin and creating this palpable sense of paranoia.

A lot like last years movie The Witch, a fantastic movie, the film builds and builds in suspense and finishes with a devastating pay off that to some isn't enough but for many including myself is absolutely fantastic.

The film is clearly fairly low budget but it's technically brilliant. The cinematography, score and editing are all brilliant and help to elevate this movie into something great. The film isn't incredibly violent but it's one of those movies where the dark tone makes the film so grim and the violence all the more brutal and devastating.

The film isn't perfect of course, the film's ending is fairly abrupt, some of the characters don't get a lot of development and there are a lot of questions the film brings up that aren't answered but at the same time I kind of loved that about the movie.

This movie puts you in the character's shoes as you don't know what going on, you don't know the answer to most questions you have and there is a very high level of ambiguity. Overall I loved It Comes at Night it isn't perfect but I've found I can't stop thinking about it and it's utterly bleak ending.

A great and very underrated movie everyone should go watch, although don't expect a horror movie. A-.