It Comes at Night

It Comes at Night
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Trey Edward Shults
Produced by	David Kaplan Andrea Roa
Written by	Trey Edward Shults
Starring	Joel Edgerton Christopher Abbott Carmen Ejogo Kelvin Harrison Jr. Riley Keough
Music by	Brian McOmber
Cinematography	Drew Daniels
Edited by	Trey Edward Shults Matthew Hannam
Production company	Animal Kingdom
Distributed by	A24
Release date	April 29, 2017 (2017-04-29) (Timberline Lodge) June 9, 2017 (2017-06-09) (United States)
Running time	91 minutes[1][2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2.4[3]–$5 million[4]
Box office	$19.2 million[5]

It Comes at Night is a 2017 American psychological horror film^[6] written and directed by Trey Edward Shults. It stars Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Riley Keough.

The film had its premiere at the Overlook Film Festival in Mount Hood, Oregon on April 29, 2017, and was theatrically released on June 9, 2017 in the United States, by A24. It was positively received by critics, and has been a modest success at the box office, grossing $19 million.

Plot

A highly contagious disease has ravaged the outside world. Paul, his wife Sarah, and their teenage son Travis have secluded themselves in a country home. When Sarah's father, Bud, contracts the disease, they kill him and burn his body in a shallow grave. The next night, they capture an intruder breaking into the house. Paul ties him to a tree overnight to confirm he is not suffering from the disease. The stranger, Will, explains that he did not know the house was occupied and was only searching for fresh water for himself, his wife, and his young son. Will offers to trade some of their supply of food for water. Sarah suggests bringing Will's family back to their home, reasoning that the more people they have with them, the easier it would be to defend themselves should anyone else discover their location. Paul agrees, and he takes Will to collect his family. Along the way, they are ambushed by two men. Paul kills them and accuses Will of having set him up. Will points out that he fought them as well and assuages Paul's mistrust.

A few days later, Paul returns along with Will, his wife Kim, and son Andrew. After establishing the rules that Paul and Sarah have used to stay safe, including keeping the only entrance locked and keeping nighttime excursions to a minimum, the two families begin to establish a sense of normalcy and grow closer to each other. One day, Travis's dog Stanley begins barking aggressively at and chases an unseen presence in the woods. Travis follows the dog deeper into the woods before Stanley's barking suddenly ceases. Travis insists to Paul and Will that he heard something in the woods. They decide to return home, as Paul insists Stanley knows the woods and will find his own way home. That night, Will seemingly contradicts a story he had told Paul earlier about what he and Kim were doing prior to finding the abandoned house.

That evening, Travis is awakened by a nightmare about his grandfather. He discovers Andrew sleeping on the floor of Bud's old room, also suffering from a nightmare. Travis leads him back to his parents' room before hearing a sound from downstairs. Investigating, Travis finds that the front door of the house is ajar. He wakes Paul and Will, who investigate further and find a bleeding and gravely sick Stanley lying on the floor. They kill and burn the dog. When Travis reveals that the door was already open when he came downstairs, Sarah suggests that a sleepwalking Andrew might have opened the door. As tensions between the two families begin to rise, Paul decides that they isolate themselves in their own rooms for a couple of days so they can calm down and ensure no one is infected.

The next morning, Travis overhears a distraught Kim telling Will that they need to leave. Travis informs his parents that Andrew might be infected and, as such, he may be infected himself. Paul and Sarah don protective masks and gloves and take weapons to confront Kim and Will, fearing that they may steal their food and water or return later by force. When Paul asks to be let in to see if Andrew is sick, Will draws a gun and takes Paul captive. Will insists that his family is healthy and demands Paul give him food and water and allow them to leave. Paul and Sarah overwhelm Will and force him and his family outside. Will and Paul get into a brutal fight before Sarah shoots and kills Will. Kim flees into the woods with Andrew. Paul fires after them, killing Andrew. Kim hysterically begs Paul to kill her to end her misery, and he does. Having witnessed it all, the dazed Travis vomits blood. Later, he spots signs of illness in the mirror.

Later, Travis awakens in bed, visibly sick. His mother, also sick, comforts him as he dies. Some time later, an infected Paul and Sarah sit at the dinner table in silence.

Cast

• Joel Edgerton as Paul, Sarah’s husband and Travis’s father
• Christopher Abbott as Will, Kim’s husband and Andrew’s father
• Carmen Ejogo as Sarah, Paul’s wife and Travis’s mother
• Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Travis, Paul and Sarah’s son
• Riley Keough as Kim, Will’s wife and Andrew’s mother
• Griffin Robert Faulkner as Andrew, Will and Kim’s son
• David Pendleton as Bud, Sarah's father and Travis’s grandfather
• Chase Joliet and Mick O'Rourke as men who attack Paul and Will

Production

Shults began writing the film after the death of his father as a way of dealing with the pain.^[7] Although the film is post-apocalyptic Shults did not look to any other such films as inspiration, instead he cited the work of Paul Thomas Anderson and John Cassavetes and the films Night of the Living Dead and The Shining as inspirations. To the later point, the film takes some influences from The Shining's Overlook Hotel in that the layout of the house is specifically obscure and never properly established. Shults has described it "as this kind of labyrinth" and a metaphor for "the mesh of Travis’ head" ^[7]

In June 2016, Joel Edgerton joined the cast of the film.^[8][9] In August 2016, it was announced that Christopher Abbott, Riley Keough and Carmen Ejogo had also joined the cast.^[10]

Filming

Principal photography began in August 2016 in New York.^[11]

Release

The film had its world premiere at The Overlook Film Festival at Timberline Lodge, Oregon, on April 29, 2017.^[12] The film was scheduled to be released on August 25, 2017,^[13] but was rescheduled for June 9, 2017.^[14]

Box office

As of August 12, 2017, It Comes at Night has grossed $13.9 million in the United States and Canada and $5.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $19.2 million.^[5]

It Comes at Night was released alongside The Mummy and Megan Leavey, and was expected to gross around $7 million from 2,533 theaters in its opening weekend, with a chance of making as much as $12 million.^[15] It made $700,000 from Thursday night previews and $2.4 million on its first day.^[4] It ended up debuting to $6 million, finishing 6th at the box office. Deadline.com noted the film's poor audience word-of-mouth led to a drop of potential Saturday and Sunday sales.^[16]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 186 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It Comes at Night makes lethally effective use of its bare-bones trappings while proving once again that what's left unseen can be just as horrifying as anything on the screen."^[17] On Metacritic, the film has a score 78 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[18] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale.^[19]

Influx Magazine film critic Steve Pulaski gave the film an A, saying, "It Comes at Night is a near-masterpiece of form; a supremely engaging horror-drama that's well-shot, eerie beyond belief, and immaculately paced to boot."^[20]

References

External links

• Official website
• It Comes at Night on IMDb
• It Comes at Night at Box Office Mojo
• It Comes at Night at Metacritic
• It Comes at Night at Rotten Tomatoes