There’s a scene early in It Comes at Night where a man is blindfolded, led through the woods, and interrogated in a grim, post-apocalyptic whisper. It’s tense, atmospheric, and drenched in dread. You lean forward, heart racing, ready for the nightmare to begin. And then… it never really does. Because in Trey Edward Shults’s high-minded horror-thriller, the biggest thing that comes at night is crushing boredom in the shape of thematic ambiguity.
This is a film that sells itself like a slow-burn end-of-the-world chiller, but forgets to pack the actual fire. It’s like ordering a double whiskey and getting a glass of melted ice with a TED Talk on fear. Critics praised it as a “mood piece,” which is code for “not much happens, but it looks really nice while not happening.”
Let’s start with the basics. It Comes at Night is set in a vaguely defined plague-ridden future where people die from a mysterious disease that involves black goo, coughing, and the inability to act in anything but slow motion. We follow Paul (Joel Edgerton), a stern father who has turned his family’s woodland home into a survivalist fortress. He’s got rules, a dog, a gas mask, and the facial expression of someone who hasn’t smiled since before the virus hit—though you suspect he wasn’t much of a giggler before that, either.
He lives with his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo, wasted in a role that could’ve been played by a mannequin) and their teenage son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), who spends his time wandering dimly lit hallways like he’s auditioning for a haunted house. The kid has vivid nightmares, stares at things intensely, and occasionally eavesdrops like a human Ring doorbell. He’s also the film’s de facto protagonist, which is unfortunate, because his main character trait is “quietly unnerved.”
Things kick off when Paul captures a man breaking into their house. This intruder, Will (Christopher Abbott), claims he has a wife and child and is just looking for water, food, maybe a functioning plotline. After some blindfolded skepticism and light hostage negotiation, Paul decides to let Will and his family move in. What follows is a slow, creeping deterioration of trust, paranoia, and relationships—which could have been compelling, if it weren’t paced like a funeral on Ambien.
Every conversation in this movie feels like it’s happening underwater. People speak in hushed tones, and no one ever says what they actually mean. Which, sure, is realistic, but so is waiting in line at the DMV, and no one wants to watch that for 90 minutes. The script tries to build tension through silence, but the silence becomes deafening, like the film itself is too afraid to commit to anything other than vague dread.
And let’s talk about the dread. It Comes at Night flirts with being a horror film, but it never buys it dinner. The trailer promised a terrifying, supernatural threat. Doors creaking open at night. Growling in the darkness. Fevered hallucinations. And yet, the closest thing we get to a monster is Paul’s intense commitment to wearing flannel and never blinking. The actual “it” that supposedly “comes at night” remains frustratingly undefined. Disease? Fear? Toxic masculinity in a forest cabin?
That ambiguity might work if the film didn’t spend so much time pretending something concrete was going to happen. There are dream sequences that hint at a monster, but they’re all red herrings. It’s like the movie is playing peekaboo with its own horror elements. “Boo! Just kidding, it’s trauma again.”
Visually, the film is impressive—Shults and cinematographer Drew Daniels shoot the hell out of the woods, hallways, and gas-mask-lit gloom. It’s atmospheric as hell, but in the same way a foggy parking garage is atmospheric. Sure, it feels like something bad might happen, but then a Toyota drives by and you realize it’s just Tuesday.
The problem is that Shults mistakes withholding information for depth. The film raises questions it has no intention of answering, and not in a cool, The Thing-style “who’s infected?” way, but more like “did we forget to write an ending?” The climax (such as it is) arrives with a whimper—trust breaks down, tragedy unfolds, and the film ends on a slow zoom of Travis looking vaguely haunted. Roll credits. Thanks for coming. No refunds.
You leave the film not haunted or disturbed, but annoyed. It’s horror theater for people who find plot development too gauche. A parable about fear and humanity where the humanity was apparently cut in editing. The characters don’t develop so much as decay quietly in their own gloom. You keep waiting for something—anything—to jolt the story to life, but the biggest shock is that the dog dies off-screen and nobody really reacts. Even the dog, apparently, lost interest.
And yet, the critics adored this thing. Called it “masterful,” “nuanced,” “emotionally devastating.” Look, nuance is great, but not when it comes with the dramatic momentum of a slowly deflating air mattress. It’s not emotionally devastating if the emotion in question is mild irritation.
There’s a great movie somewhere in It Comes at Night—a taut chamber thriller about mistrust, isolation, and the collapse of civility. But this isn’t that movie. This is a film that took a survivalist premise and buried it in arthouse ennui. It plays like The Road with even less action and somehow even fewer reasons to care.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 ominous hallway walks.
Watch it if you enjoy staring into the dark while nothing happens and then feeling smug for “getting it.” For everyone else, this is the cinematic equivalent of being handed a beautiful, gift-wrapped box, only to open it and find… more atmosphere. And possibly a metaphor. Somewhere. Maybe. Don’t worry though—it probably comes at night.
