Review of The Vast of Night (2019) by Davrosdaleks1 — 07 Jun 2020

This movie on Amazon Prime is a Twilight Zone homage about two friends (played by Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz) in the 50's who discover suspicious airwaves and events hitting their small town. This was an interesting film.

This is one of those movies that is so well visually planned, including a couple inspired moments of cinematography. Vast takes place in real time. Now, this isn't a continuous-shot attempt like 1914, but the film makes use of a lot of tracking shots driving in the immediacy of the events.

For a movie made on a small budget, it looks pretty good. The sets, clothing, and vehicles all evoke the time period.

I also appreciate that although a lot of this involves scenes with a small cast (this takes place at night), the populated scenes look busy. A lot of moderately or low-budget movies these days never seem to have as many extras as they did in the 80's, making them feel less natural. This doesn't have that issue.

The dialogue too flows well. Both the rapport between the two leads and moments of unsettling exposition are so well handled. However, the dialogue can fly pretty fast at points and with most of the characters' heavy southern accents it can be hard to follow sometimes. I definitely missed lines.

Be forewarned that this may be too slow-paced for some people. Also, one may be disappointed in the ending.

I had a good time, but I admit that this may be more of an on-the-fence situation when suggesting to others. The visuals definitely work, but the plot may be more subjective.