The new movie It Comes at Night is a small indie horror/suspense movie where not only does nothing actually come at night, but also the movie comes dangerously close to things actually happening for 80 minutes. But, shew, mostly nothing happens until the last ten minutes so we, the audience, can just kind of relax and not worry about things like plot, rising action, etc.
The basic premise of the movie is that a couple of families are surviving in the middle of the wilderness because something has happened to the rest of the world. Most likely the bubonic plague has ravaged the country so these few survivors do what they can to stay safe and healthy while their sense of dread and paranoia rises.
Perfectly fine plot and this indie flick deliberately keeps things vague. I get what it’s trying to deliberately obscure events… the characters don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the world so we, the audience, don’t either. I can dig that… it could have worked except for one major problem.
This movie has about seven characters who largely have no personality and are given nothing for us to hang onto. In other words, we barely know theses characters beyond some of their actions so any suspense the movie generates is lost. If we can’t care if these dummies live or die, then how can the suspense and tension really work? There are numerous, ponderous scenes with dark and foreboding music but it doesn’t earn any suspense. And it tries really hard to no avail.
Look, this is definitely not a popcorn flick… the majority of audience members are going to be bored and hate this movie. So it’s gotta work as a smart, well-crafted indie that appeals to film snobs and it fails there as well. I’ve seen other small indie productions with similar plots and themes that manage to work. I’m not against the slow burn and lack of info but the film commits too many unforgivable sins.
Unfortunately, professional, serious-minded film reviewers bought into this film. I’m not sure why… maybe they just saw the tone and vibe it was going for and figures, hey, this is artistic. “I like artsy-fartsy things so this exercise in profound indie genre film making MUST be good.”
Even on the off-chance youv’e heard of this flick, don’t bother. Or listen to the professional critics – maybe I’m just too dumb to get it, man.
Score: 64