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Thread: It Comes At Night (Trey Edward Shults)

  1. #1
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    It Comes At Night (Trey Edward Shults)

    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

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  2. #2
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
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    BOY does this movie have one hell of a misleading title and marketing. Flat out, the title has nothing to do with the movie, and it's honestly a stretch to even call this horror. It certainly has thriller aspects to it, sure, but if this were marketed more accurately, I doubt anyone would consider this a horror film.

    That aside, the movie's honestly fine, but I hate when studios do this sorta thing. Because even though the movie's not bad, my immediate reaction is that of annoyance, when the movie's ending and I realize I've been had.

  3. #3
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    BOY does this movie have one hell of a misleading title and marketing. Flat out, the title has nothing to do with the movie, and it's honestly a stretch to even call this horror. It certainly has thriller aspects to it, sure, but if this were marketed more accurately, I doubt anyone would consider this a horror film.

    That aside, the movie's honestly fine, but I hate when studios do this sorta thing. Because even though the movie's not bad, my immediate reaction is that of annoyance, when the movie's ending and I realize I've been had.
    Yeah, this might be one of the bigger tricks that a studio has done as far as marketing goes. Eekk.

    There's some things to talk about, but in the end of the day, the idea of that is infinitely more exciting than the movie. Repetitive, slow, and rather predictive as far as the story beats go.

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  4. #4
    So what genre is it, I wonder?
    Last 10 Movies Seen
    (90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)

    Run
    (2020) 64
    The Whistlers
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    ) 55
    Pawn (2020) 62
    Matilda (1996) 37
    The Town that Dreaded Sundown
    (1976) 61
    Moby Dick (2011) 50

    Soul
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    Heroic Duo
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    A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
    As Tears Go By (1988) 65

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  5. #5
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
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    Honestly, it's really just more of a hard drama.

  6. #6
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    Honestly, it's really just more of a hard drama.
    What genre would Straw Dogs be? It feels like that crossed with a one-off Walking Dead episode.

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  7. #7
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ezee E (view post)
    What genre would Straw Dogs be?
    Rape/revenge thriller
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  8. #8
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    Rape/revenge thriller
    Minus the rape?

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


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  9. #9
    White Tiger Field Stay Puft's Avatar
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    I enjoyed this. Found it richly atmospheric with its widescreen lensing, use of light and shadow, moody score, the constant dive into the dream world, etc. It's not a great film, and I feel it's less than the sum of its parts, but I also admire its resolute bleakness. As experiential cinema, I was taken by it. Nice genre filmmaking.

    I guess it's a good thing I didn't follow its marketing campaign? I watched the trailer in the OP but I'm not seeing how it's terribly misleading. It's a horror film (there are even some lame jump scares). The premise is right there in the trailer (and "fear turns men into monsters" could be the movie's thesis statement, for all that it actually has to say). Also:

    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    Flat out, the title has nothing to do with the movie
    I've seen this sentiment in a lot of places, and people trying to decipher what it could be referencing (i.e. the concept of fear, the kid's nightmares, which yes, duh), but the thing that gets me is that it's also hilariously literal in a way people are tripping over themselves to miss ("it" comes at night during each act break).

    I don't see anything wrong with the title.
    Giving up in 2020. Who cares.

    maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka) ***½
    Without Remorse (Stefano Sollima) *½
    The Marksman (Robert Lorenz) **
    Beckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino) *½
    Night Hunter (David Raymond) *

  10. #10
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    Bleak, unpleasant and ultimately empty. The ambiguity does not inspire curiosity or wonder. The scenario does not enlighten in regards to human behavior.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  11. #11
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    Wow, I guess I'll be only the second one here to give this a glowing review. This has been a long time coming because this has literally been the hardest movie to review so far this year, if only because of how to find the right words to describe my feelings without spoiling anything.

    I love how this movie creates effective, atmospheric tension through its use of shadows, long, slow camera movements, and isolating its characters through its location, along with a very understated and chilling performance from Joel Edgerton. It also creates paranoia through its dream sequences and use of different aspect ratios. But this movie's ambiguity is what I love most about it; instead of explaining the rules of its universe, it asks the audience to come up with their own, and also asks which characters they trust based on where they are and what they do, and even that changes as the characters grow more and more paranoid all the way to its unsettling conclusion. All this being said, it does expect a lot from its audience, and for that reason it's not for everyone. For me, though, when I saw It Comes At Night the first time, it twisted my expectations so much I had to see it again three days later, and I not only loved it even more the second time, but I also came away with a different interpretation than I did the first time. I look forward to coming away with a new understanding of it the next time around.
    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

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  12. #12
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    What was misleading about a guy who came at night (with the virus)?
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  13. #13
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    The inverse of Krisha. Shallower, more vague but with a story that sustains for its feature length. Characters and situations exist more in tropes than Krisha's flesh-and-blood, deep-rooted family dysfunction, with little valuable moments like that late-night talk about ice creams few and far in between. That doesn't matter much at first though as the plot momentum of this paranoia tale is carried by Shults' formal precision and rhythmic thrills nicely, along with a bunch of appealingly low-key performances. Those turns towards the end, however, require more of both the story details and character specifics, to not feel this much of it being a genre's predictable empty nihilism. The events and the two families feel too much like pawns to its Big Theme plot rather than truly real and tangible people in horrible situations (if it's the latter this film will probably leave me a shaken mess for days though), which deflates the power of that beautifully haunting final shot. 6.5/10
    Midnight Run (1988) - 9
    The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
    The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
    Sisters (1973) - 6.5
    Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5

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