Lowbudget debut shows vast talent
“The Vast of Night,” a lowbudget indie film directed by Andrew Patterson, is set in the late 1950s and taps into the alieninvasion paranoia of the era while refusing to kowtow to kitsch or spoof.
But be warned: The aliens are never shown, so don’t expect “War of the Worlds” or “Independence Day.” (Patterson’s budget probably wouldn’t have even covered the catering on “Independence Day.”)
Instead, Patterson, working from a script by James Montague and Craig W. Sanger, is more concerned about the effect of the perceived threat on humans in the New Mexico community of Cayuga — though actually filmed in the Texas city of Whitney — specifically cocky young radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) and an even younger, and considerably more naive, switchboard operator named Fay (Sierra McCormick).
While the bulk of the town is at the local high school for a big, crossvalley rivalry basketball game, Everett and Fay are on their own trying to figure out a mystery: What is that strange sound disrupting her lines and his broadcast?
Why are lights flickering and calls being cut off ?
The plot nuts and bolts of “The Vast of Night” are not all that different from other films of the genre. It’s how Patterson puts it all together that makes it unique.
Using long takes, tracking shots, segments where the screen goes pitchblack, and rapidfire, overlapping dialogue, Patterson has created a film that forces an audience to pay attention for fear of missing something.
The opening walkandtalk conversation between Everett and Fay, in which she regales him with her futurist, Popular Mechanicsfueled dreams of the worlds of wonder that will exist in 1974 and 2000, takes up the first 15 minutes or so of the 90minute film, but it’s never less than fascinating. In interviews, Patterson has said he was influenced by the works of Richard Linklater, and while the Linklater “Before” trilogy may seem a universe away from “The Vast of Night,” in reality, the distance is not so great after all.
Then there are those shots, including the one in which the camera races through an empty town, into the gym in the middle of the game, into the bleachers and out of a window. It’s the kind of bravura filmmaking that gets people talking; “The Vast of Night” was an audience award winner and people’s choice award nominee at Slamdance and the Toronto International Film Festival, respectively, while more established directors, such as Steven Soderbergh (“Contagion,” “Traffic”) and Jeff Nichols (“Loving,” “Mud”), are fans.
Though this is Patterson’s first feature, he’s not quite the neophyte that implies. He earned his production stripes making promos for his hometown basketball team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he brings all of that knowledge of camera movement and technical choreography to a story that could easily have been as static as a radio broadcast or podcast.
“The Vast of Night” made its debut at driveins across the country last week before going to video on demand Friday, May 29. No doubt, driveins are how many experienced alieninvasion movies during this film’s time period. That alone would make the film a striking cultural curiosity. But Patterson’s talent means that, even once this pandemicinduced moment has passed, “The Vast of Night” will be remembered as his smart, stylish springboard.