It Comes At Night
A Movie Review
This movie was completely different than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be full of jumpscares and I also thought it was going to be some sort of monster movie like the movie “The Thing.” But, this movie was more of a mystery-thriller, with minimal elements of horror. Spoilers will be included in this review.
The movie starts out with a sense of dread and a theme of death, since the family’s grandpa died right away from the “sickness” that’s in the film. The family living in their house in the middle of the woods just has a mom (Sarah), a dad (Paul), and a teenage son (Travis). It shows them living a secluded life in the woods, and they seem to be getting along well.
Then, a man named Will comes along and tries to break into their house in the middle of the night. This is sort of the initiating event for the movie, and kicks off all of the family’s problems.
After Will comes into the movie, things get weird. On the way to getting Will’s family, Paul and Will are attacked by two men with guns and then kill them. Once Will’s family gets to the house in the woods, Travis starts to get weird nightmares, too.
Paul’s family and Will’s family, which consists of his wife and his kid, start having tensions later in the movie when the only exit to the house is discovered open by Travis, after Travis found Will’s son sleeping in Travis’s grandpa’s old room. Paul, his wife Sarah, and Travis all have suspicions that Will’s son could’ve been sleep-walking and opened the door. They also believe that he could be sick.
Paul and Sarah then try to check out Will and his family’s room in the house, but Will then puts Paul at gunpoint and tries to leave the house with some food and water. But, of course, Sarah then points a shotgun at Will, Paul knocks Will out, then they take Will and his family out into the woods. Will becomes conscious, and beats the living hell out of Paul, then Sarah shoots Will. But while this happens, Will’s wife is running away with his son, so Paul takes his rifle and shoots the son, then the wife. This scene is shocking and I was still with my mouth wide open for the rest of the movie’s ending.
I think this movie was more psychological than physical or paranormal with it’s horror, and that’s what truly scared me. After seeing it, I couldn’t get Travis’s nightmares out of my head for a couple days. I couldn’t believe that Will and his entire family died, just due to the paranoia Paul had about the “sickness” in the movie.
The real sickness in this movie was the paranoia everyone had. When a man is paranoid, it can turn him into a monster. That was the whole point of it. It shows how evil humans can be when they feel like they’re in danger or in a hostile environment.
Some bad things about It Comes At Night is how I was so thrown off by the fact that the movie was so much different than the trailer made it seem. It was slower and more of a movie that has a deeper meaning than a direct message or theme.
I also didn’t like the ending that much, it ended with Travis being shown as sick, and possibly the mom, then the last shot was Paul and Sarah sitting across from each other at the dinner table.
This movie wasn’t a horrible film though, it was just a lot different from most horror movies people would want to see, which also makes it good. Don’t go into this movie expecting something like The Conjuring or Insidious, because it’s definitely not like any other modern horror movies. I’d recommend this movie to someone that likes detailed, original movies with nice directing and writing.
Movie Grade: 7/10