A24 Films may be promoting Trey Edwards Shults It Comes at
Night as another apocalyptic, zombie feature, but there’s far more that lurks
beneath its dark surface. Concentrating
on the corrosive power fear has over us and the most base elements of human
nature, the film is more an examination of the monsters we become under extreme
circumstances, a harsh mirror held up before the audience forcing them to
contemplate what makes us all tick. That
Shults proves a master at creating an atmosphere of dread as well as wire-taut
tension makes up for certain lapses in the film’s logic.
Time and place are kept purposely vague, yet the viewer
quickly comes to find out that some sort of plague is affecting the populace
and daily living has become somewhat primitive. Paul (Joel Edgerton) lives with
his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and son Travis (an exceptional Kelvin Harrison
Jr.) in a secluded home in the woods.
They’re getting by, barely, praying that this sickness, whatever it is,
doesn’t affect them. However, when a stranger (Christopher Abbott) breaks in
their home, claiming to be looking for supplies in what he thought was an
abandoned building, the family is backed into a moral corner as to what to do
with the intruder. The man, Will, claims
to have a wife, Sarah, and a child, Andrew (Riley Keough & Griffin
Faulkner), that they are living in another part of the woods and that he was
simply looking for food and water. After
much soul-searching, Paul decides to let this family of three shares his home
with his family.
While this act is commendable, it is not without its
consequences. Shults’ script is finely-tuned, as it slowly develops the
mistrust that ultimately grows between the two families, punctuated by a series
of disturbing dreams had by Travis, who’s haunted by his recently deceased
grandfather and sexually aroused by Sarah.
This young man’s emotional and psychological turmoil is the undercurrent
of the film, his thoughts a reflection of how the natural order of things has
been turned upside down.
Shults does a masterful job of creating a sense
of place, the home suffused mostly with darkness and suggestive shadows, while
his ability to push a scene from normality to unbearable tension is
exceptional. While the film’s third act
does falter and it could have benefitted from another jolt or two, there’s no
question It Comes at Night, is an unnerving, timely piece of horror, a cruel
and pointed endorsement of the sort of anti-immigration sentiment that is
seemingly sweeping the world.
This article appears in Jun 8-14, 2017.
