"It Comes At Night" is an incredibly chilling hitchcockian paranoia horror that creeps up on you. Filmmaker Trey Edward Schults whose feature directorial experience prior to this was only "Krisha," brilliantly follows the regular rules that come with crafting an effective character-based psychological thriller while at the same throwing curve balls every now and then, so that at the end, the threat from within becomes even scarier than the outside threat.
Starring Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo and Riley Keough, the story is about a family (husband, wife, and teenage son) who's closed themselves off from the terrors of the world where a certain disease has infected the general population. But their reclusive existence gets put to the test with the arrival of a desperate young family seeking refuge. What starts out as a harmonious agreement turns into suspicion and distrust which then leads to protecting your own family at all cost.
I think Trey Edward Schults does an excellent job of building the tension, slowly but surely, because halfway trough he kinda flips things over from the concept of us against the world out there into us against each other. So it's written in such a way that from the start is already giving the audiences warning signs to be alert even when the characters seem to have their guard down. It's character-driven, it's performance-driven, and thanks to the unsettling cinematography and how it plays in the dark, you're on your toes the entire time. In a lot of ways, it reminds you of '70s paranoia thrillers but it's also the kind of suspenseful film that M. Night Shyamalan probably only wishes he could make.
Fear is a great motivator that can drive you into committing unspeakable acts, that's pretty much what Trey Edward Schults is going for with "It Comes At Night."
-- Rama's Screen --
Starring Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo and Riley Keough, the story is about a family (husband, wife, and teenage son) who's closed themselves off from the terrors of the world where a certain disease has infected the general population. But their reclusive existence gets put to the test with the arrival of a desperate young family seeking refuge. What starts out as a harmonious agreement turns into suspicion and distrust which then leads to protecting your own family at all cost.
I think Trey Edward Schults does an excellent job of building the tension, slowly but surely, because halfway trough he kinda flips things over from the concept of us against the world out there into us against each other. So it's written in such a way that from the start is already giving the audiences warning signs to be alert even when the characters seem to have their guard down. It's character-driven, it's performance-driven, and thanks to the unsettling cinematography and how it plays in the dark, you're on your toes the entire time. In a lot of ways, it reminds you of '70s paranoia thrillers but it's also the kind of suspenseful film that M. Night Shyamalan probably only wishes he could make.
Fear is a great motivator that can drive you into committing unspeakable acts, that's pretty much what Trey Edward Schults is going for with "It Comes At Night."
-- Rama's Screen --