It Comes at Night film review ★★★★★

Some audiences have been disappointed that It Comes at Night isn’t the movie that its title and trailer seem to promise, so it might be worth mentioning that ‘it’ isn’t a monster. It’s not even an external threat. What comes at night – in the quiet dark, when you’re finally alone – is what you’ve managed to keep at bay during daylight hours: your fear, your hopelessness, your guilt. Trey Edward Shults hair-raising post-apocalyptic chiller isn’t short on external threats, but it’s the internal ones that you’ve got to worry about.

Paul (Joel Edgerton) is a family man. He’ll do anything for his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and 17-year-old son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Once upon a time, that might have meant working hard as a teacher (his subject was history) in order to give them a good life. Now, though, his commitment takes on other forms – like wheeling his father into the woods and setting him on fire.

Paul’s father has died of a incredibly nasty and infectious disease, the same disease that might have just decimated the entire world. Paul and his family aren’t sure how widespread the epidemic is, but they’re not taking any chances; they’ve secluded themselves in their country home, boarded up the windows with planks, and don gasmasks and gloves when necessary. The precautions aren’t always enough, though. Paul’s father was testament to that.

The three survivors are understandably twitchy. When a stranger (Christopher Abbott) breaks into their house in the middle of the night, therefore, they bludgeon him and tie him to a tree. They learn that his name is Will and he’s just like Paul: a desperate man looking to provide for his wife and child. After some deliberation, the two families decide to shack up together and pool their resources. Trust is a fragile thing, though – even before anyone starts feeling a bit peaky.

It Comes at Night is only the second feature from the grotesquely young Shults (b. 1988), and sometimes his inexperience shows. There are a couple of lags in characterisation and writing that a more mature director might have fixed. But the narrative tension and atmosphere is second to none; It Comes at Night has more power in one scene than Terrence Malick could muster up in the whole of Song to Song, a film on which Shults interned.

Shults’ own movie owes a debt to Joel Edgerton, who’s coming to seem like the most underrated actor of his generation. After his heartbreaking turn in Loving, Edgerton demonstrates the darker side of familial love in It Comes at Night. It’s a performance that’s tender and menacing by turns, and that fully articulates what exactly it is that comes at night.