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Tag: Joel Edgerton in It Comes At Night

Review: “It Comes At Night” Brings Psychological Paranoia & Terror This Summer

Secure within a remote desolate home in the woods as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, the tenuous domestic order that Paul (Joel Edgerton of “Loving” and “Midnight Special”) has established with his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo of “Selma”) and son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr. of “Birth of a Nation”) is put to the ultimate test with the arrival of a desperate young family seeking refuge in “It Comes At Night.
“The movie is about the unknown and the fear of the unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown.” So says Writer/Director Trey Shults of his impressive new thriller “It Comes At Night,” which opens wide on June 9th. The minimalist story is not a typical genre thriller, according to Shults, but, as he said (quoting Mies Van der Rohe), “Less is more.” The basic story is about a family trying to survive in a cabin in the woods while some sort of virus ravages an apocalyptic land. “Imagine the end of the world— Now imagine something worse,” says the A24 press handout.

The second man who brings his family to the remote cabin seeking haven and the necessities of life is headed by Will. Will is played by Christopher Abbott, who was excellent in “James White,” where he portrayed a young man nursing his dying mother (Cynthia Nixon of “Sex and the City” and “A Quiet Passion”) through terminal cancer. Will’s wife, Kim, is played by Riley Keough (Elvis’ granddaughter, “American Honey”) and his small son Andrew is played by Griffin Robert Faulkner.
Despite the best intentions of both families portrayed in the film, paranoia and mistrust boil over as the horrors outside creep ever-closer, awakening something hidden and monstrous within Paul as he learns that the protection of his family comes at the cost of his soul.

There is also, as the film opens, the harrowing death of Travis’ grandfather, Bud, played by David Pendleton. One of the unusual things that happens to someone dying of the mysterious contagious disease is that the victims’ eyes fill up completely with pupil; no “whites of their eyes” as they are decimated when death draws near.

Shults said, during a Q&A following the film’s showing in Chicago on June 1st, that he was fascinated with questions about topics like genocide. He is definitely focused on death and man’s mortality in this film, which is not about zombies or monsters, but is every bit as horrific as he examines the lengths people will go to to protect their own and to survive.
Since the original impetus for Shults’ film came from helping his own father through terminal pancreatic cancer, the mood of the film is grim, grimmer, grimmest. Shults has said that, following his father’s death (they had been estranged for 7 years prior), he sat down and wrote and “It just came spewing out of me.” He’s certainly in good company in musing on the temporary nature of our existence on this planet. Woody Allen has examined the topic in any number of comedies and Ridley Scott just trotted out another “Alien” film (“Alien: Covenant”) which has some thoughts on the same eternal question.

But Shults has made death as scary as anything you’ll see this summer, and perhaps as scary as anything you’ll ever see in any season on the universal topic of man’s mortality. What lengths will a man go to to “save” and protect his family? What would happen if we were facing an unbeatable disease with no modern medicines or hospitals to help us? Many in the world are facing these questions right now, in real time, but Shults is still struggling with the deaths of two close family members (his father and his cousin), with memories which clearly haunt him to this day.
Award-winning filmmaker Trey Edward Shults (John Cassavetes Award, 2016; Independent Spirit Breakthrough Directors Award (2016); Gotham Award (2016)) follows his incredible debut feature KRISHA,(which starred family members and debuted at SXSW in 2015), with IT COMES AT NIGHT, a horror film following a man (Joel Edgerton) as he learns that the evil stalking his family home may be only a prelude to horrors that come from within.
The uncomfortable subject matter of “It Comes At Night”, says Shults, is “drawing from heavy personal experiences and placing it into a fictional narrative, hoping the same emotions come through. At its heart, this is a movie about mortality.”
The script for “It Comes At Night” was actually written before “Krisha.” When “Krisha” was a big hit at SXSW, Shults got a 2-picture deal from A24. This is that second film, but he has been learning from the best since the age of 18, working on 3 Terrence Malick films, starting with “Tree of Life” in Hawaii.

The film is beautifully shot and paranoia is justified and created with the skillful use of camera, sound and light (see my interview with Trey Shults on www.TheMovieBlog.com for details). This is a riveting, horrific picture of a future we can only hope never becomes a reality. I am still thinking about it today, four days later. Yet Shults resists calling it a horror film, and believes it is far more about psychological horror than a genre flick with monsters or things that go bump in the night (as they literally do in this one.)

For some, the questions we are left with as the film ends will cause criticism. There are times at the “end” of a piece (remember the finale of “The Sopranos”?) when viewers feel they have been shortchanged or cheated by the ending. For me, this was not an issue, as it was pretty clear what was probably going to happen next. Still, I understand those who want more of a “Breaking Bad” type of ending, where things are wrapped up neatly and some characters live and some characters die (and spin-offs are even made possible by the “concluded” feeling.)

Two other things that may cause Shults some criticism from some sources will be his intentional intermingling of the dream sequences (nightmares, really) with reality. They will say (truthfully) that it is sometimes difficult to tell what is a dream and what is reality.

Again, this did not cause me any problems. After listening to Shults explain why this was intentionally done, it made even more sense. He explained that he saw the dream sequences as a way into Travis’ mind. (And Travis = Trey). It is Travis’ point-of-view through which we see the story, even though it is his father, Paul (Joel Edgerton), who is dictating the terms of Travis’ young life.
And last, some will say, “Why is it called ‘It Comes At Night’?” Shults explained that night is the time when he is at his most creative and it was a title that sounded good. Hopefully, he said, it helps put you in the heads of the main characters. It is not a literal interpretation of what occurs in the film but more a metaphor, so be warned.

This is the beginning of a bright future for a very gifted filmmaker.

Genre: Horror/psychological thriller/Mystery
Length: 97 minutes
Writer/Director: Trey Edward Shults
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Riley Keough, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Griffin Robert Faulkner, David Pendleton
Reviewer: Connie Wilson

Speaking with the Director of “It Comes At Night”

“It Comes At Night” Writer/Director Trey Edward Shults Talks About His New Film

Genre: Horror/thriller/mystery

Length: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Writer/Director: Trey Edward Shults

Cast: Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, Christopher Abbott, Riley Keough, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Griffin Robert Faulkner, David Pendleton, Mikey the dog

Reviewer: Connie Wilson

Following the absolutely gut-wrenching preview showing of the film “It Comes At Night” in Chicago on Thursday, June 1st, writer/director Trey Edward Shults talked about how this, his second feature film, came to be. (the movie opens wide on June 9th).

At 18, Trey became an intern on a Terrence Malick shoot in Hawaii for the volcano scenes in “Tree of Life.” He was rooming with the film loader, who taught him how to load film inside a changing bag for Imax films. They were helicoptered to the volcano site and filmed lava erupting from the volcano.

Something caused the second unit film loader to be unavailable and Trey stepped in, with lava oozing down the sides of the volcano in the rain and the cinematographer yelling, “We need another mag!” After that, Trey quit college at 19 and, in addition to interning in Austin with Malick, was employed on a Jeff Nichols movie.

Shults spent this time studying movies constantly, making shorts, and trying to find his voice as a filmmaker. He says he has never worked on “a traditional film set” and is open to collaborating with actors. “Krishna,” which was Shults’ first feature-length film, premiered at SXSW in 2015, featured his family members, and earned him a 2-film deal with A24. It is a movie about family and, as he said in Chicago, “I knew I had to quit making movies that starred only my family members.” (Laughter).

So “It Comes At Night,” film number two, was born, after Shults had captured the John Cassavetes Award (2016), the Independent Spirit Awards Breakthrough Director Award , the Gotham Award (2016) and earned reviews that praised “Krishna” as “unforgettable,” “original” and “a ferociously impressive film debut.”

In this, Shults’ second full-length feature film, Joel Edgerton (“Loving,” “Midnight Special”), who plays Paul in the picture and also was an executive producer, helped with assembling the top-notch cast: Carmen Ejogo of “Selma;” Riley Keough (Elvis’ granddaughter who was in “The Girlfriend Experience” and “American Honey”) as Kim; Christopher Abbott (“James White”) as Will and new-comer Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Travis, through whose eyes the story is told. Said Shults, “I’m very blessed, because they are all very talented and amazing people. I went through the Hollywood bullshit casting. You fly to London and meet with someone and they say, ‘Oh! I’d love to be in your movie!’ and you fly home and then they say they have committed somewhere else.” Stelts shrugs and says that the role of Travis was cast during a Skype session with Kelvin Harrison, Jr. of New Orleans, who was 22 at the time, while Shults was 27. Kelvin is the person through whose eyes we experience the film. (When asked for his favorite scene in an interview, Harrison said he enjoyed the grim, gory sequence where Riley Keough straddles him in bed and oozes thick blood into his mouth. He also identified one of his favorite movies as the 1959 film “Imitation of Life,” about a light-skinned black girl passing for white).

The personal elements of the film came from Trey’s watching his father (from whom he had been estranged) slowly die a grim death from pancreatic cancer. As someone who nursed her father through terminal liver cancer in a town too small to have much of a hospice program, I could definitely relate. In sharing that commonality, I earned a hug from the director, who is the product of various strong female role models, including his actress aunt Trisha Fairchild, who starred in “Krisha.” Family is important to Trey and that line about trusting family first is used in the film’s dialogue.

The long, slow fade to black of his father’s death made a deep and indelible impression on the young filmmaker. He says, “I started writing and it started spewing out of me. For the people who dig it, that’s cool. It’s not about the disease; it’s about what the disease does to people.” He mentions genocide and paranoia and the struggle to survive, turned to maximum volume.

Set in a remote cabin in the woods, the survivors of an unnamed disease are trying to survive, using gas masks and barricading themselves from what is out there that might infect them or kill them. We never know exactly what that might be, but gas masks are used throughout, as are kerosene lanterns and natural light (much like Terrence Malick’s films and their emphasis on natural light.) The film’s tone is reminiscent of early Carpenter or “Night of the Living Dead.”

Dream Sequences: Q: You’re never really sure it is really a dream or reality. Is that intentional?

A: “Yes. The way we shot it was deliberate, from 240 to 275 to 30. The score is also subtly different and, at the end of the movie, the aspect ratio slowly changes and the reality/dream music is interwoven; we shot 3.0 for the rest of the film. The goal with the nightmares was a path into Travis and how he’s thinking and how he’s processing these things. (“Totally,” is usually Trey’s favorite one-word response.)

Q: What about the stupidness of horror movies, in general? What did you think was stupid in that way in your film, if anything?

A: Travis running into the woods after Stanley (the dog) is probably the stupidest thing. (He adds that he would probably have done it, too).

Q: What about the title?

A: A title hits you and then it sticks with you. At night is when my brain is most active. It’s a little gateway into how I think. (Laughs) I had this nightmare where I had cancer, but it was just in my finger, but I was gonna’ die. The title “It Comes At Night” is not literal. It is metaphorical. It’s intentional. The purpose was to put you in the headspace of the characters.”

As Trey says, “The entire theme is pretty minimal. Less is more,” he says, quoting Mies van der Rohe.“I really wanted to make the most of this toned-down setting. There isn’t an ounce of fat on this movie.” Shults mentions some of his Obsessive/compulsive tendencies (wrestling, when in high school, until a shoulder injury ruined that career) and says, “I mixed the gunshot sounds over and over and over.” Shults also said, “We didn’t do night lighting. You go in the woods with a flashlight or in your house and it’s dark and it’s totally terrifying. We wanted economical storytelling. It’s a low-budget film (shot in 5 weeks in one setting.) There is no hidden material.”

Shults tells the story of attending a screening of “There Will Be Blood” with his mother and how it influenced him, as have such diverse films as “Boogie Nights,” “Night of the Living Dead,” “The Shining,” and “The Thing.” For all of his admiration for such classic horror films, Shults says “It Comes At Night” is not a genre film.

“The movie is about the unknown and the fear of the unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown.” He tells the story of his cousin who, having been drug addicted but clean for years, came to a family reunion but relapsed while at the reunion (and later died). These brushes with death early in his life—whether a parent or a cousin—obviously have informed the young filmmaker’s work. His apprenticeships with Terrence Malick inform the first 45 to 50 minutes of the film, when the cinematography goes from cameras to dollies to zoom shots.

Some will not like the ending, because the film leaves us with questions.

Shults says, “I like questions. I know that’s what I love. I love the kind of movies where you think about them later and wonder about things. If this turns out to be one of those movies that stays with you afterwards, that’s cool.” (“Totally.”)

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