By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Trey Edward Shults
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Riley Keough, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Griffin Robert Faulkner and David Pendleton.
Rating: Very Good.
Trey Edward Shults, writer/director of 2015´s “Krisha”, which catapulted his career brings a more ambitious project with “It Comes At Night” and again Shults delivered with a very good thriller.
The movie tells the story of Paul (Joel Edgerton), his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) a family that is lives in an desolated house in the woods hiding from an apparent disease that is threating the world.
Everything will change for the family when Paul discovers that Will (Christopher Abbott) a man who broke into his house thinking that it was not occupied
Will asks for Paul´s help since he is seeking shelter for his family. At the end Paul agrees but once Will and his family are in their house strange things will happen and know Paul will have to figure with his family a way to survive before it´s too late.
Trey Edward Shults like I mentioned before directed another great film with “It Comes At Night” and is a homage to movies like “The Shining” and “The Thing” which I saw that Shults was influenced by this two pictures for this movie, since both of the mentioned films are psychological horror films.
The screenplay also written by Shults is very original and the characters he created were organic from beginning to end. You can see the conflicts in all the characters in all levels and the movie is not the typical and predictable thriller that we have been tired on seeing over and over again.
One of the things that really impressed me of this film was how Shults played with the tension in each scene and the way how he intercut the scenes worked at all levels with his editing.
Another key element that has been lacking in horror and thriller films are psychological elements and here were used wisely. You need those elements for a movie of this genre, otherswise it won´t work and here Shults used those elements and made a very good product.
The performances by Joel Edgerton and Christopher Abbott are rock solid and gave life to very interesting characters.
The Second Act of the film is one of the best developed that I have seen in a while and Shults was very smart in using every tool he had in his disposal to make an interesting film.
The performances he took out with his directing were really good and real at the same time. The movie for moments can be confusing; so it is very important to pay attention to every single detail.
“It Comes At Night” is a very smart and frightening thriller that it will fulfill the expectations for both thriller and horror lovers and I hope you are pleased with this movie.