It Comes at Night is one
of the best horror movies of the last decade. Somehow it failed to make much of a dent at
the box office, despite debuting against the execrable The Mummy re-make. Now
it’s made its debut on Netflix, which should give people a second chance to
discover this under seen gem of a film.
It Comes at Night is a sparse, stripped-down horror that
leaves a lot to the imagination. It isn’t the type of film that spells things
out, or spoonfeeds the audience. You will not be given a clean resolution; this
movie isn’t interested in handing you a shiny package tied in a pretty bow.
This is no fairy tale, and it has no fairy tale ending. It’s more like a rusty
hatchet deployed against the skull; a vague, creepy blast of existential angst
that comes at you in a trickle, then slowly builds into a full on water
boarding session. This film is an act of terrorism, and it’s writer/director
Trey Edward Shults is a terrorist.
The film opens after. After what, we are never really clear
on. There is some sort of deadly disease that seems to be highly contagious and
fast moving. Is society gone? Maybe. Our
main character, Paul (Joel Edgerton) is living in a boarded up house in the
woods with his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and their son Travis (Kelvin
Harrison). Sarah’s father has succumbed
to the disease and we see him being dispatched and burned by Paul a la a zombie
movie. Travis has to help with this task
and later will be haunted by it. He will suffer from nightmare’s of his
grandfather transformed into some sort of feral beast.
The action really starts with a break-in to the house. Late at
night a man named Will comes through a window into the foyer. Paul knocks him
out and ties him up. The next morning Will tells Paul that he has a wife and
child holed up in a house. They have food, but have run out of water. Sarah
convinces Paul to bring this family back, and to welcome them into the house.
Everything will go downhill from there.
The three newcomers are introduced to the house rules.
Everyone lives by routine. It doesn’t take long for that routine to develop
cracks. In the end, the plot of this movie comes down to who may or may not
have left a door open. It’s a red door. The always foreboding red door, always
approached by a creeping camera that seems just off level is a major image in
this movie. It lays at the end of a narrow, dark hallway with an angled ceiling
that just screams claustrophobia.
And that’s a big part of what this movie does. It traps people
in a house. That hosue is huge, yet somehow always feels cramped and too small.
The house is in a forest, which is expansive yet feels constricting and
shadowed. Closeness breeds dissension.
Fear mounts. Distrust of the other, whether it’s the unseen monsters that may
or may not haunt the woods, or the child living in your own house, grows into
terror and hate.
Although it’s never discussed, and only seen a few times, a medieval
painting plays an outsize role in the film.
The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel hangs in the
house. It feels akin to something by Bosch, and just seeing it sets one on
edge. Is this what the world has become? Is this what we as a species were always
headed for? This movie seems to think so.
When things start to really fall apart, it
happens fast. One assumes that the actual end of the world, be it due to
plague, or climate catastrophe, or nuclear war, will be like that. It’ll
probably happen on a Thursday, honestly. These things always happen on a Thursday. Anyway, whatever cohesion the group had
crumbles. Someone left that goddamned door open. Spoiler warning, belatedly I
guess: this is the kind of movie where the hero can absolutely murder a
child.
The finale of It Comes at Night is pretty
fucking nihilistic. No one gets out alive. Everyone was doomed from the start.
No one gets any answers for the questions that have been raised. Nothing matters,
LOL. And that’s a pretty good lesson for the current age.
Please, go to Netfilx (or rent it on Amazon,
or buy the BluRay, or whatever) and watch this movie. You’ll thank me.
-Nathan Tyree
-Nathan Tyree
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