DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER. I REPEAT. DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER.
The trailer for this tension-filled drama is a complete misrepresentation of what the movie is actually like. It totally betrays the focus of the movie and what it's really about. This is probably why some audience members are turning this movie away, because they either don't understand it or had different expectations going in.
That being said, I don't even really consider this a horror movie. That's to be expected with low-budget Art-house productions, like The Witch, but even The Witch was filled with actual scares and real dread. I still go back to that movie to this day, because it left a very real impression on me, a very creepy one.
It Comes At Night boasts 3 things:
Great performances
A claustrophobic and sometimes very tension-filled environment
Good music
And that's about it. The reason I'm giving this movie 3/5 stars, an above average rating, is those qualities really sell this movie. Those 3 things made me feel I didn't waste my money and got my time worth's spending.
Let me make something clear first before I go any further. I LOVE slow-burn horror movies. I'm an advocate for them. When a movie can perfectly combine jump-scares and atmosphere, it makes for some of my favorite movies of all time.
The problems I have with It Comes At Night though are 2 very simple things, and this could just all be me and only problems for me:
It feels like there's supposed to be this feeling of dread throughout the movie, I felt like I was supposed to be really depressed and battered down at some of the events happening, but a lot of these tension-oriented and scary scenes didn't really go all-out. They didn't go balls-to-the-wall and kept a scene going for more than 5 minutes. What I mean is, whenever a situation came up that was bad, like the dog barking at the woods and then running off, it never went past the initial concept of the scene. The scene lasts for 5 minutes, the family goes back inside the house, maybe a TINY bit paranoid, and then a few scenes later, the dog shows back up sick from the unnamed disease, and has to be put down. It wasn't like in other movies, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Witch, where a pivotal scene like that would just build and build. The only scene that resembles something like that is in the finale, and even then, it's only about 10 minutes tops.
And the other thing was they NEVER explained what actually comes at night. I know, I know, this is a very silly response that sounds like it would come from a mainstream movie-goer who doesn't get these kinds of movies, but this aspect of the movie actually bothers me. They NEVER, EVER, ONCE, in the entire movie ever even hint at what possibly could be causing the disease or where's it coming from. No talking about where it started, how many people have it, just nothing at all. My problem is, I wouldn't mind that they don't fully explain the disease, but the fact the title of the movie and even scenes in the movie itself hint that they would eventually explains "what comes at night." Does the disease only show up at night? Do nightmares only show up at night? I guess these questions don't really matter, but it'd be nice if the movie distracted from those questions long enough to get me really invested in what was going on with the families.
Also, the ending is one of the biggest fuck you downer endings I've seen this year. It's almost as fucked up as the ending to The Wall. And YES, I understand the purpose of these twists. They tie into the central theme of the movie.
I just, I don't know. I want to give this movie a higher rating, but something about it is holding me back. There were tastes of genuine tension and there were great performances, but I don't know. I may have to think about it longer before revisiting this.
Review by filmtoasterVIP 3BlockedParent2020-03-03T02:11:56Z
DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER. I REPEAT. DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER.
The trailer for this tension-filled drama is a complete misrepresentation of what the movie is actually like. It totally betrays the focus of the movie and what it's really about. This is probably why some audience members are turning this movie away, because they either don't understand it or had different expectations going in.
That being said, I don't even really consider this a horror movie. That's to be expected with low-budget Art-house productions, like The Witch, but even The Witch was filled with actual scares and real dread. I still go back to that movie to this day, because it left a very real impression on me, a very creepy one.
It Comes At Night boasts 3 things:
Great performances
A claustrophobic and sometimes very tension-filled environment
Good music
And that's about it. The reason I'm giving this movie 3/5 stars, an above average rating, is those qualities really sell this movie. Those 3 things made me feel I didn't waste my money and got my time worth's spending.
Let me make something clear first before I go any further. I LOVE slow-burn horror movies. I'm an advocate for them. When a movie can perfectly combine jump-scares and atmosphere, it makes for some of my favorite movies of all time.
The problems I have with It Comes At Night though are 2 very simple things, and this could just all be me and only problems for me:
It feels like there's supposed to be this feeling of dread throughout the movie, I felt like I was supposed to be really depressed and battered down at some of the events happening, but a lot of these tension-oriented and scary scenes didn't really go all-out. They didn't go balls-to-the-wall and kept a scene going for more than 5 minutes. What I mean is, whenever a situation came up that was bad, like the dog barking at the woods and then running off, it never went past the initial concept of the scene. The scene lasts for 5 minutes, the family goes back inside the house, maybe a TINY bit paranoid, and then a few scenes later, the dog shows back up sick from the unnamed disease, and has to be put down. It wasn't like in other movies, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Witch, where a pivotal scene like that would just build and build. The only scene that resembles something like that is in the finale, and even then, it's only about 10 minutes tops.
And the other thing was they NEVER explained what actually comes at night. I know, I know, this is a very silly response that sounds like it would come from a mainstream movie-goer who doesn't get these kinds of movies, but this aspect of the movie actually bothers me. They NEVER, EVER, ONCE, in the entire movie ever even hint at what possibly could be causing the disease or where's it coming from. No talking about where it started, how many people have it, just nothing at all. My problem is, I wouldn't mind that they don't fully explain the disease, but the fact the title of the movie and even scenes in the movie itself hint that they would eventually explains "what comes at night." Does the disease only show up at night? Do nightmares only show up at night? I guess these questions don't really matter, but it'd be nice if the movie distracted from those questions long enough to get me really invested in what was going on with the families.
Also, the ending is one of the biggest fuck you downer endings I've seen this year. It's almost as fucked up as the ending to The Wall. And YES, I understand the purpose of these twists. They tie into the central theme of the movie.
I just, I don't know. I want to give this movie a higher rating, but something about it is holding me back. There were tastes of genuine tension and there were great performances, but I don't know. I may have to think about it longer before revisiting this.