Official Dreadit Discussion: "It Comes At Night" [SPOILERS]

[u/kaloosa]

The Mummy Discussion Here

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Official Trailer

Summary: Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, a man has established a tenuous domestic order with his wife and son, but this will soon be put to test when a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge.

Director(s): Trey Edward Shults

Writer(s): Trey Edward Shults

Cast:

• Joel Edgerton as Paul
• Christopher Abott as Will
• Carmen Ejogo as Sarah
• Riley Keough as Kim
• Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Travis

Rotten Tomatoes: 84%

Metacritic: 79/100

[u/TheRipsawHiatus]

Definitely misled by the advertising as others have already expressed. It's a slow burn, psychological suspense. I'm glad I watched it, but it wasn't good enough that I will ever get the itch to watch it again. I'll be honest, I was disappointed, but I acknowledge that my expectations are to blame.

[u/Insanepaco247]

I am so fucking sick of audiences treating horror/suspense movies like rollercoasters. This asshole couple were talking through the entire thing and I could still hear them perfectly well when I moved to the far end of the row. Then when it finished, they started whooping and hollering about how bad it was and how much of a waste of money it turned out to be. I love going to theaters more than quite a lot of things, but goddammit do I hate movie audiences.

On to the movie. Like I said on the r/movies thread, I didn't love it as much as I thought I would, but my only real problem was that it was pretty standard for a close-quarters, fear-is-the-enemy thriller. I felt like I knew where it was going the entire time, and even though the journey was good, it didn't change the fact that we've all seen this kind of movie before.

Really well made, though. The suspense was great despite the predictability, which is a feat all by itself. Good acting, not many dumb decisions made for the sake of plot. Even an ending that didn't try to shoehorn in some world-ending creature. This was very much the story of a family, and I really appreciated that.

[u/childish_gamebino]

I remember seeing the teaser for this film a while back and knew that this was my most anticipated of the year (cept maybe Dunkirk).

Similarly to A24's the Witch- we see a young talented director go in a unique direction with the horror/thriller genre. I would love to see more directors take note from Trey & Robbert Eggars (d. Witch) and continue to make very intelligent horror films - cultivating a new sub genre.

After I saw this film- my roommate and I spent three or so hours in our living room breaking down each and every frame, trying to decipher this horror maze. Below are some thoughts/questions that we both brought to the conversation.

-Travis found little Andrew in the (grandfather's) room on the floor? Was it the director's intent to foreshadow to Andrew's future infection in this scene?

-The red door obviously symbolizes something. Possibly fear, isolation, death, etc. But did anyone notice in the "dream" sequence with Travis in the woods- where he put down his red lantern to pick up a rifle laying unattended. Could the red door and red lantern allude to something else? Or just the color red in general? Curious to hear other's thoughts.

-In the final Act we see a desperate Will (Chris Abbot) anxiously trying to escape with his family. Andrew is hidden in some way or another in every shot until the end. Will reminds his wife/Andrew to keep his eyes shut in order to not see him pointing a gun/so they are unable to see that Andrew is in fact infected. I believe it was the latter, considering the bleakness of this world and the many ways people had to survive, it doesn't make very much sense to me that Will would care if his son saw him pointing a gun. Just my thoughts.

-I was very interested into the relationship between Travis and his father Paul (Joel Edgerton). Paul hardly ever trusts anyone in the film (save maybe his wife), but I believe this directly effects the habits of Travis sneaking out in the night. Travis is curious and wants to have freedom yet Paul resists this multiple times. One time in particular when Travis wants to see the dog- his father won't allow it, instead him and Will take care of it.

-We saw the film at the Arclight and after they had the Arclight Presents behind the scenes. The director of this movie states that much of the film was written immediately after his father's death (of cancer). Knowing that- what sort of things did you guys notice that could be directly linked to that experience he had see his father die? Also him and his father had gone almost ten years without seeing each other prior to his father's death. I think I already read somewhere that the "infection" in the movie was intended to be cancer. Not sure about this.

-Why did Paul leave Will tied up for two nights in the woods before questioning him? Was it a test of his resilience/endurance or was it only to see if he was infected? *Also when we see Paul sitting in the room watching Will as he's tied up through the hole. Did anyone notice what the book was that he had laying next to him on the table?

-Another note I had was that the layout of the home was never shown in detail leaving the viewer in the dark about where everything was? Do you think that this was intentional?

-I noticed that the film was predominantly told from two perspectives. Paul's during the day and Travis's at night. Why do you think the director chose to do that? Did anyone notice it from Travis's view during the day?

Have to say that this is one of my favorite films to date. Something that can make you think/discuss weeks after viewing it.

[u/llikeafoxx]

Did anyone else feel mislead by the advertising and hype around the movie?

For the record, I gave the movie a 9/10 in the r/movies poll, because I still think it was amazingly well done, very tense, and very haunting.

But the advertising made it appear to be a very in-your-face horror film, which we didn't get. I did enjoy what we got, but it as pretty different from my expectations. I had a weird mix of feelings as I was both disappointed and really enjoyed the film.

[u/gamblingGenocider]

I really wish I saw what you all did in that movie, I wanted to like it so much but I just didn't.

[u/fuzzbunny21]

I was the only person in a theater of around 10 not to leave the movie verbally trashing it. I can see why the RT user scores are rotten.

That said, I absolutely loved this movie. Everything felt so deliberate, and as others have mentioned, the dream sequences lend themselves to watching the movie again. A24 seem to have a knack for picking up atmospheric thrillers in disguise as horror movies.

[u/CaptainAwesome8]

Ok someone help me out here:

The brief moment you see the dead dog, was the blood dragged from the direction of the red door? Implying the dog was killed inside and dragged out? Also, was the white door closed in this scene?

I just can't remember. But if Travis did see something attacking his dog in the nightmare, the parallel could be that it was him attacking his dog the night Andrew wandered into the grandfathers room. That would further lead to the theory that Travis is the "monster" and responsible for everyone dying.

There are a ton of parallels to the painting it showed in Travis's room, as pointed out by my gf. The movie definitely drew attention to that, which makes me think Travis is the cause, because the explanation of "well they were screwed and it was airborne and they were all gonna die anyways" doesn't really have any connections to that painting. Travis being the plague-bearer on the other hand, makes a lot of sense.

Edit: OR what if Travis seeing Andrew and bringing him back was the dream? And that's why Andrew doesn't remember

[u/spinfinity]

I'm glad that people on r/horror have experience with these types of films because I browsed Facebook comments on the film and so many others are just lost. It's definitely not a film that hands you every answer on a silver plate and I strongly appreciate that; it's a smart film. Not entirely innovate, but what it does, it does so well. Atmospheric to the extreme, metaphorical, shot and acted incredibly. I just got back from it and I sat in my seat for a solid couple of minutes just taking in that ending. I will agree with some people that it was certainly advertised in some ways as a full-on horror film, and it isn't really, but the message it delivers and the ways it makes you look at things that you normally may not put much thought into make it fantastic, in my opinion. I think some viewers are so used to jump scares and roller-coaster horror films and monsters and entities that they feel entitled to that experience, but that's a little naive to me. It was a really well executed film.

[u/hail_freyr]

Loved it. It was worth all my hype and then some. Film of the year so far for me. Audience was surprisingly good given all the horror stories I've heard (though I did hear a few sighs when it ended).

[u/ShelbyHer]

Can someone explain the drawings Travis was making after Stanley went missing? For a brief moment we saw his interpretations of the woods with monsters inside. We're the monsters his own invention or we're there things lurking in the woods? Why didn't his dad react to these drawings?