It Comes at night
In sickness and in health
released OUT NOW! 2016 | 18 | blu-ray/dvd/download Director Trey edward shults Cast Joel edgerton, Christopher abbott, Carmen ejogo, riley Keough
This downbeat psychological thriller is the sort of horror film lauded by people who are a bit snobby about horror – not that that’s the fault of promising young director Trey Edward Shults.
Set after a mysterious, unspecified outbreak, it focuses on a family of three – father, mother, 17-year-old son – living out in the woods, boarded up in the grandfather’s old house. When a man breaks in looking for supplies for his own family, they reluctantly invite them to share the house. But can the newcomers be trusted?
A tightly-wound, claustrophobic piece which unfolds largely in scenic gloom, it’s handsomely mounted, heavy with portentous slow zooms into Kubrickian symmetrical compositions. As it poses the question “What are you willing to do to protect your loved ones?”, its character motivations are credible, and performances excellent all round.
But plot-wise it doesn’t break new ground: if you’ve seen a handful of episodes of The Walking Dead, you’ve seen this kind of struggle between survival and decency dramatised before. Indeed, George Romero’s Dead movies were grubbing around in the same dark corners of the human psyche decades ago.
Extras Director’s commentary and a half-hour Making Of.
The goat featured briefly in the film is the same “animal actor” used for Black Phillip in Robert Eggers’ The Witch.