Review of It Comes at Night (2017) by Michael M — 07 Jan 2018

This is a very different sort of horror movie, and truth be told I'm not even entirely sure if I liked it. There's part of me that loved it, and part of me that was really annoyed by it. It's strange because it's a post-apocalyptic movie without anything really apocalyptic about it.

You could create your own head canon where you throw this story in the universe of Walking Dead, the new Apes movies, or just about any post-apocalyptic reality and it would actually work. It's not about the apocalypse, it's not about the disease, and it's not even really about the characters.

It's about the fear and the paranoia that comes out of people when they're put in the worst possible situation. The thing is though, a lot of shows and movies about the apocalypse are already doing that.

Anyone who watches The Walking Dead will tell you that the real horror isn't the zombies, it's the people. I guess the thing I liked about It Comes At Night though is that it doesn't have the distraction of zombies or a large cast, you're just stuck with a small group of people and no real knowledge of what's out there.

The trailers tout what "It" is as being the mystery and horror, but that's just a marketing fail, since that's not really the point. That aspect of it, I kind of liked, and I was intrigued by the descent into madness and paranoia we see this group go through.

I also just loved the directing here. It's a little more artsy than most movies of this type, and that created a very unsettling atmosphere. It's not really scary, but it is tense and creepy. So yeah, I'm conflicted.

I don't think the movies premise is as original as it probably likes to think it is, but its stylistic approach is unique enough that I found myself kind of liking it. It's a movie I really want to love, there's a lot in the directing and acting that totally hits the sort of thing I love in movies, especially horror movies.

There's just those weird little details to it that keep me from loving it. It's the type of movie I'll probably need to see a few more times to solidify my opinion on it, but right now, that's where I stand.