‘It Comes at Night’ is the new film, by Trey Edward Schultz, released on June 9th, 2017. From the first trailer, I was hooked. Horror, bring one of my favorite genres in film, this movie peaked my interest. The first trailer for the film was shrouded in mystery. All that was presented in the trailer was a lot of haunting imagery, a lot of darkness, and a very intriguing premise.

As the film started, I was not sure quite what awaited me. But all I knew, was that this was going to be an absolutely terrifying movie. However, after the first twenty minutes, the film slowed down to a halt, and it seemed to stay like that for the rest of the runtime.

I expected a terrifying horror film, but what I got was an extremely dark, depressing, post-apocalyptic drama, that explored the ideas of trust and human nature. This is not a bad thing, but most audiences will walk into the movie, not expecting what they are going to get.

This is a major fault in marketing. Every single trailer seemed to market the film as some sort of monster movie. Even the title, ‘It Comes at Night’ is extremely misleading. Every terrifying scene that was shown in the trailer was part of dream sequences in the movie.

However, if I change the lens in which I view the film, the film does its job quite well. The acting is amazing all around the board. The standouts being Joel Edgerton as Paul, and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Travis.

The score of the film is also good. It is nothing truly special but a couple tracks did really put me in the mood and enhance the film. By far the best part about this film is the cinematography. The movie is truly just beautiful to look at. The camera also does a slow dolly following the characters many times throughout the film, which makes it feel so much more haunting.

While all the technical aspects of the film are great, there are some serious problems with the execution. First of all, the movie has no real story or focus point for the majority of its runtime. The film is more focused on establishing the characters and setting. This is not a horrible thing but many audience members may be disappointed at the end of the film, feeling that there was no real “point” to the movie.

This brings me to my next problem, the ending. The ending of the film is frustratingly left open-ended and is also very vague. Some people may like this, but in the theater, the whole audience groaned at the ending and some people even bashed the film, calling it a “rip-off”.

The biggest complaint, for me personally, is the tone. The film is so dark and depressing that it made the film hard to watch, and when it ended, I just had a bitter taste in my mouth.

In the end, ‘It Comes at Night’, is a film that suffers from very misleading marketing. The film itself has no real problems or flaws but the majority of audiences will not like this film because of how non-linear it is. Instead of focusing on telling a story, ‘It Comes at Night’ wants to make us feel. The film is not something that is watched, it is something that is more experienced. Some people may love this style of the film, but for me, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

6/10