'IT COMES AT NIGHT' is a post-apocalyptic psychological horror film made by Director, Producer, Writer and Actor Trey Edward Shults and was made for about US$5M and has so far grossed US$17M, was released in the US in early June and has received generally positive Reviews from critics and audiences alike.
The film opens with a death. That of an older gent, Bud (David Pendleton) who has clearly contracted some contagious disease with open seeping black welts on his body, dark sunken eyes, dramatic weight loss and barely alive when we are first introduced to him. His daughter Sarah (Carmen Ejogo), breathing through an oxygen mask, wearing rubber gloves tends to the frail man, with another masked man Paul (Joel Edgerton), Sarah's husband, looking on. He is loaded into a wheelbarrow, wrapped in a blanket and carted outside to a shallow grave, wherein he is placed face up. Paul, places a cushion over the mans head, unloads his pistol into it, and then douses the now dead body with an accelerant and throws in a lighted match. The body catches alight instantly and sends a plume of blackened smoke up through the trees of the forest where they live.
This sets the scene, where there has clearly been some devastating viral outbreak of seemingly global proportions whereby a deadly contagion is transferable from human to human by both airborne means and by touch - hence the gas mask and the gloves. To save themselves from the inevitable, Sarah and Paul, with their teenage son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jnr.) and trusted dog Stanley, have sought refuge deep within a forest lodge dwelling in the middle of nowhere, cut off from the rest of the world and living a solitary life fending for themselves. It's a meagre existence, but they are alive and relatively safe, albeit constantly on edge and on the look out for fear of attack from the now menacingly outside world.
The next night, while sleeping they are awakened by someone attempting to break into their house. They capture a lone man, Will (Christopher Abbott), and determine that he is not infected, but tie him to a tree, hooded, overnight. The next day Paul questions Will while still secured, and Will advises that he thought the house was abandoned and he was just searching for food and water to sustain his family some fifty miles away. Will offers to trade some of his supplies - chickens, goats etc. in exchange for essential foods and clean water.
Sarah suggests that Will should bring back his family to the safety of their home on the basis of safety in numbers. Paul agrees, reluctantly, and the pair head off in a pick-up truck to collect Will's wife Kim (Riley Keough) and young son Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner) and their supplies and livestock. En route they are ambushed by two men, which Paul manages to dispense with but accuses Will of setting him up. Will convinces Paul that this was not so, on the basis that he too tried to fend them off. A couple of days later Paul and Will return with Kim, Andrew and a trailer loaded with supplies and belongings, ready to move into their new shared home.
Later that evening over dinner, Paul establishes the ground rules about living in the house, and that no one must go out at night, that they always venture outdoors in pairs, and that the only way in and out of the house is via the red door, to which he has the only key and it is kept locked and bolted every night without question. The red door leads to another room, a sort of plastic sheeted quarantine room, which leads outside. Over time the two families begin to bond, an element of trust is forged and a degree of normalcy sets in. They eat together, play games by candlelight in the evening, and co-exist in relative harmony.
One day, Stanley the dog begins barking uncontrollably at some unseen presence in the woods. Travis follows Stanley deeper into the woods, but looses sight of him but still hears his barking . . . until it stops abruptly. Paul arrives bringing up the rear, and Travis insisted that he heard something in the woods, but saw nothing. Paul derides Travis for being careless, and they decide to return home, saying that Stanley knows the woods and will return home safe by the next morning.
Later that night Travis is awakened by a nightmare he has about his grandfather Bud. He walks through the house to discover Andrew lying asleep on the floor in Bud's old bedroom, apparently also suffering a nightmare. He leads the young lad back into his parents room where Will and Kim are sleeping. Shortly afterwards he hears a sound coming from downstairs. Creeping down to investigate he discovers the red door to be ajar and a sound coming from the room beyond. He quickly wakens Paul and Will who panicked, investigate to find a sick and bloodied Stanley lying on the floor.
They shoot and burn the dog. Sarah suggests that a sleepwalking Andrew may have opened the door, but given that Paul has the only key, how is that possible? At this point tensions between the two families start to rise, and Paul suggests that the two families should isolate themselves from each other in separate parts of the house to cool off for a few days, and to ensure that they are all free from infection.
The next morning Travis overhears a conversation between Will and Kim, that they should leave and straight away. Travis lets his parents know what he has heard and how Andrew may in fact be infected, and therefore by default, so would he be too. Paul and Sarah confront Will and Kim about their potentially infected son, but they staunchly deny this, but refuse to let the others see Andrew. A power struggle breaks out resulting in Will taking Paul captive and demanding food and water provisions and that they be allowed to leave immediately with their 'healthy' son. Paul and Sarah manage to overwhelm Will and lead the family out of the house, where the two men get into a brutal fight. Sarah shoots and kills Will in the back while he is beating Paul with a rock. Kim tries to flee with her son but stumbles to the ground. Paul shoots and kills Andrew leaving a distraught mother wailing uncontrollably. Paul shoots her dead too. The film ends with Paul, Sarah and Travis's worst nightmare coming true as they learn of their fate bestowed upon them by the family they tried to help, and an unseen force.
Critics have been generally positive in their Reviews of
'It Comes At Night', but for me the film just didn't click. Sure, this is atmospheric, moody and creepy at times, but there are none of the usual horror tropes we have come to expect from end of the world post-apocalyptic virus infected fare, and this is a welcome redeeming feature it must said. But equally there are no jump scares in this film, little by way of suspense and the premise is a little too predictable, if remotely plausible. The horror here does not come from flesh eating rampaging zombies, or from some other outwardly force, but from some unseen viral infection that is never really explained except that it is airborne or transmitted by touch, and takes hold of its victims within a day. I also struggled to determine exactly what comes at night - other than fear, anxiety, distrust and paranoia under the cloak of night-time darkness with the real enemy coming from within! But, I guess that's what the Director intended, thinking that somethings gotta give when you throw two desperate fighting for survival families together unexpectedly under one roof. There are also several plot holes and unanswered questions which just leave you guessing. You can save yourself the price of a cinema ticket and catch this on BluRay, DVD or digital download soon and watch it from the comfort of your own lounge room.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
The film opens with the death of MI6 Agent James Gasciogne (Sam Hargrave) at the hands of ruthless KGB Agent Yuri Bakhtin (Johannes Johannesson) who then proceeds to remove his wristwatch - for it contains microfilm detailing a List of covert field operatives working in the USSR, that is a very valuable commodity in this 1989 cold war era action spy thriller set on the eve of the Berlin Wall coming down and with it the shifting of superpower alliances. Fast forward ten days and in an ice cold bath emerges a very bruised, beaten-up and battered Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) - a top level MI6 Agent.
She steps out of her bath, pours herself a neat Stoli over rocks, gulps it down and makes herself presentable. She then appears in an interrogation room with MI6 Executive Eric Gray (Toby Jones) and CIA Agent Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman) to discuss the intricacies of her very recent mission to Berlin from which she has just returned, and is wearing the battle scars to prove it. The day following Gasciogne's death she is dispatched to Berlin by her superiors to recover the List, now missing in action, and identify, locate and dispense with a known Double Agent referred to as 'Satchel' who has been selling intelligence to the Ruskies for years, and who is believed to be responsible for betraying Gasciogne.
Amongst all of this is a Soviet defector known as Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) who stole the List in the first place and is the only person to have sighted the contents of the List and has all its data committed to his memory. Spyglass also is a Stasi Officer. Percival has agreed to escort Spyglass and his family across the border into West Berlin, but during a large protest rally which Broughton, Percival and Spyglass use as cover to effect their escape to the West, Percival shoots Spyglass and sends word to Bremovych's men that the injured Spyglass and Broughton are on the run. More hand to hand combat follows, and all the while Spyglass is bleeding out from his shot to the stomach. The pair end up in car which gets chased down the streets of East Berlin by Bremovych's henchmen. Eventually the car is shunted into the river - Broughton swims free but is unable to free a pinned down Spyglass who drowns in the passenger seat as the car sinks into the River.
After this fracas, Percival visits Lasalle, and kills her to cover his own tracks but not before the French Agent was able to stab Percival twice. Lorraine arrives just after Percival has left, discovering the dead body of Lasalle and an envelope with her name on it containing the covert photographs taken of Percival meeting with Bremovych, proving in her mind that Percival is Satchel. After Percival patches up his wounds, he sets his safe house alight and attempts to flee the city under cover of darkness. Broughton tracks him down, shoots him dead and removes the wristwatch containing the List.
Three days later and Broughton meets with Bremovych in a Paris hotel suite, and she reveals herself to be Satchel, and in possession of the List, which she hands over to the Russian mobster. Bremovych knows however, that he has been set up and has his three henchmen and a 'cleaner' enter the room to dispense with Broughton and dispose of her body. Using a pistol concealed in an ice bucket, Broughton instead dispenses with the three henchmen and the cleaner, and then puts a bullet in Bremovych's head, but not before revealing first that she has been playing all sides along from the get go. Broughton then boards a private jet, where she meets Kurzfeld revealing herself to be a mole planted by the CIA, and hands over to him the wristwatch containing the List, before the pair depart for Langley . . . job done!
