It Comes at Night (2017)

Written by Gimly on September 11, 2017

I don't need happy endings in my movies. A downer ending is often what makes a movie great. But I do like satisfactory ones. It Comes at Night did not give that to me. Mystery is often its own reward, and I do believe that's what writer/director Trey Edward Shults was going for here, but it didn't wind up hit that resonant for me. This particular movie felt like it wasn't about the journey, it was about the destination, and we essentially didn't get one.

Joel Edgerton is fantastic of course, but any one of the other actors could have been as well, we'll never know because they were never given that opportunity. Which really says it all with It Comes at Night. There seemed like there was something very worthwhile just on the other side of the veil, but we'll never know, because we never got to see it. And with cinema, if we didn't see it, does it really count?

Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole.