Here comes the night

Victims of the plague are burned in the pit.

It Comes at Night (MA15+)
Starring: Joel Edgerton

What a weird, tense little end of the world movie this one is.
If you’re a sucker for a dystopian fantasy – and let’s face it, who isn’t – then “It Comes At Night” fills the bill nicely.
A dread plague that features pustulant boils and horrible bodily discharges has killed off most of society.
Joel Edgerton and his family are in a remote cabin in the backwoods of the United States, wearing gas masks and doing everything they can to defend against the disease. In fact, they’ve just disposed of a family member who had it.
What remains of the world has taken on a primitive bent, and we’re back to the rule of the gun.
In the cabin in the woods, their isolation is their security – until another family comes along.
And that sets the scene for an examination of humanity, trust, and whether the danger is really within or without.
Despite its comparitively low budget, the film is well-crafted and scripted, and the tension is reliably maintained.
In the final battle of dog eat dog, each family is out for itself and newly-tested alliances are predictably broken.
Edgerton does well as the family’s patriarch, prepared to do whatever it takes for their safety.
The central question of the film asks if the things we do for our own security can paradoxically make us less secure – and seems to give more than a nod to the yes vote.
There are things that no-one wants to do – and yet they have to.
A movie for our paranoid times, it seems a prescient tale of the new dawn in America.
– Jason Beck