You know what comes at night? Nothing! Nothing comes at night! (Yes, I grew up with Gene Shalit.) With an amazing title, thick atmosphere and excellent marketing as a horror movie, you may be like me and tricked into watching It Comes at Night on opening day in the theater. It Comes at Night is not only NOT a horror movie, it is a barely fleshed out psychologically tense drama that I may have liked more if I was not misled. I like zombies, but I don’t need zombies in all my movies. There are plenty of horror movies without monsters. It Comes at Night is NOT one of them, and I resent the implication that it is. Fuck your red door! I’m big mad. Spoilers coming. I didn’t like this movie so you get no space. I’m doing you a favor.
A family lives in the woods because of an outbreak of some dumb virus: maternal grandpa, married interracial couple, teenage son and dog. Dad shoots sick grandpa. Teenage son misses the Internet and people because he eavesdrops on his parents in their bedroom. Still odd. Son also has weird dreams, which adds to the atmosphere. A guy breaks in. Dad ties guy shirtless to a tree to make sure that he is not infected then let’s build a community. This is apparently a good idea after not getting water or food for 24 hours. On the way to the guy’s home, two guys shoot them off the road. Dad is suspicious, but because guy helps fight back albeit refuses to kill, they get the guy’s family. Everything is great until it isn’t. Teenage son eavesdrops on new family and literally chats with the guy’s wife once, who also cannot sleep. Dog dumps family because he would rather die than stay in this BS movie. Teenage son finds guy’s young son lying on living room floor then returns him to his parents. Teenage son wakes up house when he realizes the red door is open. Dog is hurt. Cue quarantine and suspicion. When Dad decides it is time to eliminate the virus threat, guy says not today and tries to hostage his way out, but mom has a SHOTGUN and the drop. The advantage switches a couple of times, but guy basically nearly beats Dad to death in the face because he would prefer not to have his family shot, virus or not. Mom shoots him because did I mention that she has a shotgun. Dad is an amazing shot because he shoots kid from far away. Guy’s wife moans, “Kill me,” and he obliges. They go back home. Teenage son dies from virus. Mom and Dad sit at table bereft and should probably be infected too, but we don’t even get that. None of this was shocking to me because I watch too many movies and live in a world where an Austrian father locked up his daughter, raped her for years and had kids with her without it being the apocalypse so yes, I got the memo that human beings are trash. I did not need a virus to find a terrifying story. Considering the number of missing or murdered people, It Comes at Night is fairly tame and reasonable in comparison.
Clearly the filmmakers of It Comes at Night have never been given dating advice. Usually the best time in a relationship is at the beginning, and things go downhill from there. Patterns get established fairly early on so if you find yourself on the losing end of a physical conflict with the other person within the first five minutes, i.e. shirtless, tied to a tree with a bag on your head and receive no water or food for 24 hours with duct tape on your mouth, maybe don’t try to build a community with them or else you will find yourself on the wrong end of the stick. Just me? Because I thought that crap was obvious. Is this news? No, I don’t have any goats. Why do you ask?
When I read reviews for the film, they praised It Comes at Night as emblematic of what is happening in society today. Do the reviewers mean people who were close are now at each other’s throats because they realized that the other person is pro trash? Um, no, the aberration was the good times. I’m also aggravated that everyone is characterizing the film as being dominated by the dad. Clearly mom and dad had better times, but mom is equally in it to win it. She suggests building the community then picks up the shotgun to back up her husband. She has no problem with his lead, and when she does, dad alters course accordingly. They are partners. Women can do bad things. (Women are people. Shocking!)
It Comes at Night bathes in ambiguity for ambiguity sake, which irritates me to no end. Did the little boy not want to put the makeup on? Is that it? I don’t need to see the little boy with pink eye. On one hand, I get that the second family doesn’t want to show the boy to the first family because the first family shot grandpa when he got sick AND THEY LIKED HIM, but real talk, if you hold a gun to their face, it is going to have the same result anyway so……..I need the ambiguity of whether or not he is sick because….. How did the door open? How did the dog get injured? This film is one of those BS films that the minute you see the dog, you don’t even need the dog to sleep in grandpa’s bed, the dog is going to die.
It Comes at Night is strong with atmosphere. I was initially thrilled when I saw an interracial couple played by Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo. The cabin has an evocative painting “The Triumph of Death.” There is a single, red door that provides the only entrance/exit. The teenage boy’s dreams are effective ways at communicating his dread of his surroundings and the inevitable approach of death from those one loves or desires, but they also blur the line for what is or is not reality in the movie. So I just wasted 91 minutes of my life to watch a predictable film about human nature and futility of resisting death. Who do you think you are? Ridley Scott! At least he gave me Blade Runner!
After I watched the film, I found out that it was connected to The Witch, which was better than It Comes at Night, but still a movie that I would have preferred to not see. I almost decided to swear off all films released by the production company, A24 Films, but I liked Moonlight, Ex Machina, Amy, The Rover, The Spectacular Now, Enemy, Under the Skin, Obvious Child, Life After Beth. Room, Lobster, DePalma and Mojave are in my queue. I was not a fan of Laggies. Green Room was OK, but I like the director. So I have no idea how to prevent getting excited to see a predictable, underwhelming drama like It Comes at Night. If you figure it out, let me know.