It Comes at Night (2017)

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Travis and his parents are holed up in their home in the middle of the forest. In a survival situation with an epidemic raging within the world around them. After losing his grandfather the story follows Travis having to endure the horrors of the world and fear of what is outside. His dreams show him or show his mind attempting to come to terms with these issues. When a young family comes into their home things begin going downhill quickly as the latent issues that were there before become amplified once you add more into the mix.

The plot is steady and straightforward. This works well and lets the characters take the forefront. Which all of the characters are well acted and solid. This brings the plot to be more driven by the characters themselves. Their needs and ideas is what pushes them through the story as the world itself has turned into a place where staying in one spot is both preferable but at the same time very risky. The tensions between Travis’ father and the new family is subtly acted letting Paul’s steady suspicious gaze show his feelings about this younger family.

The issue comes later on when the plot starts turning intense. The reasoning and turning point for the characters is set back so vaguely that it is left rather open to interpretation. Sure that is interesting for a moment but in watching it leaves a confused state mingled with the intentional dark and bleak feel the movie will leave you with. A previous conversation is very vital to at least one interpretation but there is a vastly different interpretation that none of the characters seem to place importance on so I really can’t say it is a viable interpretation. I can add these spoiler interpretations in a comment or separate post if anyone is interested in my thoughts on this.

As much as I enjoyed the overall feel of the film, the growing paranoia as the two families collide was solid and Travis’s dreams were a sharp look into his growing mind. The plot vagueness was overdone to overshadow what could have been a much stronger film. To create a feeling of unknown is nice but it felt very artificially built into the story because elements important to the finale that the characters would know are left out of the audience’s knowledge.

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