Secure within a desolate home with his vigilant, protective and heavily armed parents, 17-year-old Travis navigates fear, grief and paranoia amid scarce resources as a desperate young couple seeks refuge in his family home with their young child. Despite the best intentions of both families, panic and mistrust boil over as the horrors of the outside world creep ever closer. But they are nothing compared to the horrors within, where Travis discovers that his father’s commitment to protecting the family may cost him his soul.

I feel lucky to have seen writer/director Trey Edward Shults‘ It Comes at Night on a big screen and I hope this will be a film that a lot of people see in the same way. Since watching it, I continue to reflect on the story and the characters that have remained haunting my mind as well as the more technical aspects of the film. I want to share with all of you every detail that happens, however, that would be giving a lot away of what makes this film so great.  

The story focuses on a family who is isolated in a large boarded up house in the woods. Some type of virus has affected the world. The film never states where in the world they are living, which works for it could be anywhere. And this film doesn’t bother with too many details about the virus or how it’s spread through the state? Country? World? We don’t know and none of that is important. It’s as if this film is just one small corner of a much larger story going one. You can speculate that out there scientists are trying to find a cure; soldiers are fighting infected monsters. Who knows? None of that matters to this family just trying to survive.

This family consists of Paul (Joel Edgerton,) Sarah (Carmen Ejogo,) and their 17-year-old son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr..) When we meet them, they are in the process of saying goodbye to Sarah’s father, Bud (David Pendleton.) Bud is not a survivor of what is happening in the world. He appears to have sores on his body and looks like death. Paul and Travis, wearing gas masks, take Bud into the surrounding woods to burn his body.

Later that night, Travis has a nightmare relating to Bud. Every time he closes his eyes Travis exists in a world of nightmares. Travis is startled awake by the sounds of an intruder in the home. The family goes downstairs to a locked door and room, where they find the intruder.  The intruder shoots at Paul, who shoots in return. He and Travis take the intruder out to the woods, where he is left there bound and gagged.  

In the daylight, Paul returns to check on the intruder and learns his name is Will.  Will has been traveling with his wife Kim (Riley Keough) and their young son Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner.) Will further explains that when he came upon the house, he thought it was abandoned, and decided to search it for water and supplies. Upon learning that Will and his family also have goats and chickens with them, Paul reluctantly agrees to let them join them and they will share resources. All begins well but soon the tension of distrust creeps in threating their arrangement.

The performances in It Comes at Night are all outstanding. Especially Edgerton, whose face shows a man constantly thinking about every potential threat that could befall his family. At the same time he makes sure to still have tender moments with his wife and son. Keough, as well gives a strong performance as a young mother who at once is flirty with the 17 year old Travis and then fiercely protective of her young son for whom it may already be too late.

It Comes at Night overflows with atmosphere. The film makes equally good use of sounds and silence as it does light and dark. The art direction, cinematography and sound design all combine to do a masterful job of pulling you into this place. You feel as if you are at the table with families and if it at some point one of the characters were to turn to the camera and address you by name, it would hardly faze you.

If you’re looking for a horror movie full of monsters and jump scares It Comes at Night is not for you. However if you’re interested in the horror that exists in the tension between strangers doing everything thing they can to protect their children, this is the film for you.