Review #163: It Comes at Night (2017)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #18: It Comes at Night (2017)

The first thing I'll say about this movie is: it's a slow burn. A VERY slow burn. As in, I got thirty minutes through the film before I recognized that I've actually seen this movie before, because almost nothing of consequence had happened for me to compare it to other movies. It's not just a slow burn though; this movie feels like it has something going on, but looking back I really don't think it's doing or saying much of anything. There was a point about an hour in where I thought, "Wow, it took an hour for the plot to really start" but once the movie was over I realized the event that I thought "started" the "plot" ultimately is nothing, and really doesn't contribute in any concrete way to the rest of the film.

I'm gonna spoil this whole movie, both because I don't think this movie is very good, and also because there is so little to talk about that I can't imagine how softball a review for this film would have to be to not spoil it.

The entire plot of this movie can be summed up as follows: There's been some kind of a pandemic, and a family is living in their secluded home hiding from the disease and scavengers alike. They meet another family, decide to live under the same roof for their strength in numbers, but they ultimately can't trust each other and in the end they kill each other and the survivors are implied to be sick from the disease. The end.

That's literally the whole movie. There's some set dressing in there- there's a scene where the two fathers get ambushed by some hunters in the woods, the son of the first family seems to have a crush on the wife of the second family, the son is having nightmares and thinks he saw some kind of monster in the woods (that may have killed their dog), and the front door of the house- that is always locked by a key only held by the father of the first family- mysteriously opens about 70 minutes into the film, which plays a big part in the paranoia that wedges itself between the two families. But the problem is, NONE OF THIS HAS AN EXPLANATION. NONE OF IT GOES ANYWHERE. It literally felt like the director was just filling time until the movie ended. The monster in the woods? Nothing comes of it. The mysteriously opened door? Never explained, and never even hinted at. The only given explanation was that the second family's young son opened it, but how? He didn't have the key. The first family's son seemingly has a dream (or perhaps memory?) of opening it, but again, how did he get the key? The second family is strongly implied to have been lying when they first met (the father says they were staying with his brother, but later he's caught saying he's an only child) but aside from contributing to the paranoia at the climax, this is never revisited and we never find out why he was lying or what the actual truth was. If the point of the movie is that paranoia is the real killer, then why does the movie end with the first family all seemingly infected with the disease? If the second family wasn't actually sick (the main impetus for the paranoia), then where did it come from?

And don't get me started on the title. "It Comes at Night"- what is "It"? And in what way does "it" "come" "at night"? Nothing in particular comes at night in this film. The door gets opened, and I guess it happens at night, but is that what the title means? "The Door Opened at Night" is a better title and more accurate too. According to the IMDB trivia, "the cast and crew signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement saying that they would never reveal what 'comes' at night." Uh, what? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I've heard a LOT of stupid stuff this week alone. Apparently a lot of fans agree that the son's dreams are what "come" at night? (If so, then why isn't it "They Come at Night"? That already sounds more evocative and accurate to the film.) It seriously feels like the title was chosen just because it was a cool title, and not because of anything in the movie itself.

This movie isn't all bad, but a lot of it is. The atmosphere is good. The characters are good. I like all the performances. But the script is just so... nothing, the movie goes nowhere and does nothing, I firmly believe the writer had an idea befitting a short film and needed to stretch it out so they wrote in a bunch of interstitial scenes to pad out the runtime to a solid 91 minutes. Or it's like they made a 3-hour movie and had to cut it down to 90 minutes, so they cut out the half that didn't actually contribute to the plot, but then they accidentally released that as the movie instead of the actual content.

I can't say that this movie didn't have potential but damned if any of it ended up on the screen.

Overall Rating: 3/10 Pandemics That Feel Way More Real Now Than In 2017

Best IMDB Cast Listing: Stanley the dog has a credit, played by Mikey! What a good boy!