KRISHA’s Trey Edward Shults has no interest in comforting you.
Editor’s Note: It Comes At Night producer Wilson Smith is an active member of the Cinapse writing team, so that association should be duly noted here.
With Krisha, writer/director Trey Edward Shults imbued a family reunion film with horror elements to great success. With It Comes At Night, he crafts a horror film built entirely around a family unit, with similarly harrowing results.
Refusing to break beyond the confines of our main characters, It Comes At Night is set amidst a devastating outbreak of disease that has brought the world to an apocalyptic state which is entirely experienced and felt through one, and then two, families. It’s not a zombie movie. It’s not a Mad Max riff. It’s not even in the vein of Outbreak or Contagion. There’s no explanation of who patient zero was, or “who killed the world”. We simply experience Joel Edgerton’s Paul struggle to keep his family alive through strict adherence to rules that seem to have worked so far. In an isolated and boarded up mansion deeply protected by dense woods, Paul and his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and teenaged son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), never go outside at night. They stay isolated. They do what they need to do to survive and stay together. Family first.
Soon a stranger attempts to enter the house, and our family puts a stop to the entry. Upon a harsh grilling, Will (Christopher Abbott) is given a chance to bring his wife and son to the house as they’re desperate and running out of food and water. Paul’s family decides to take them in in an attempt to spread out the work load. Riley Keogh’s Kim then enters the picture, along with the couple’s little son Andrew. After all… Paul and clan are good people… right?
It’s at this point that everything going on in It Comes At Night becomes truly fascinating. Paul’s rules are sacrosanct in this house, because the adherence to the rules is what keeps the disease out. The bonds of family are priority number one. But when the world has become such a threat, how can one maintain their humanity?
Never venturing beyond the immediate surroundings of the house, the story feels like a boiling kettle. In many ways the restoration of community brings a little humanity to our motley crew. Travis, who is kind of the audience surrogate, builds bonds with Will, Kim, and Andrew. This poor teenager whose life has been upended by world events is haunted by nightmares and struggling to cope with the hand fate has dealt him. It’s Travis’ youthfulness and desire for community that will be the only hope for these two families to connect and become one unit.
But there are lies being told. There are grave threats outside the walls of the home. Humanity is on the brink, and those stakes may just be a little too high for our microcosm of humanity we’re trapped with in It Comes At Night. Mistrust, innocence, and the blurred boundaries of “who is my neighbor?” will stir and simmer. Expertly explored without being too overt, Shults wonders if survival is even worth the cost in this bleak world of his own making. What is the value of human existence if all community and joy is stripped away and survival becomes god? And one can’t help but compare Paul’s mentality to the current nationalistic political climate, giving this intimate story a broader context… can we even be citizens of the world any longer if our own priorities are the only ones considered?
With striking visuals drawn from confined quarters, Shults is a new master of domicile horror, and I’d watch the hell out of a Shults-helmed classic haunted house spook-a-blast. With wonderful performances, jarring music, nightmarish visuals, and devastating thematic exploration, Shults is confident in his ability to rattle you and disinterested in coddling his audience. The one-two punch of Krisha and It Comes At Night display a young voice wise beyond his years, showcasing an ability to rivet audiences to the screen and send them back out into the world shaken by the experience he has designed.
And I’m Out.
It Comes At Night hits theaters June 9th from A24.