21 pop culture moments in 2017 that spoke to the zeitgeist
By Amy Woolsey
It Comes at Night
By far the most talked-about element of It Comes at Night was its marketing. A24 released three trailers to promote writer-director Trey Edward Shults’s latest: a rhythmic, attention-grabbing teaser and a pair of more conventional clip compilations. Stylistic differences aside, the previews all sell the same thing: an artsy monster flick, like The Thing but in the woods instead of the Arctic.
To the chagrin of audiences and some critics, the actual movie turned out to be, well, not that. It is horror, and a monster does play a pivotal role. But Shults, who made waves in art house circles last year with his micro-budget, horror-tinged dysfunctional family drama Krisha, plays fast and loose with genre conventions.
Normally, you expect the monster to manifest in concrete form at some point; even in mood-oriented fare like The Shining and The Witch, we see the ghosts/hallucinations and Satan. Here, it remains hypothetical; no monster appears, though neither does the movie dispel the notion that one exists. And, whereas most horror adopts its characters’ perspectives, It Comes at Night keeps its distance. This results in an experience devoid of catharsis, which is both deeply unsettling and wholly unsatisfying. In other words, it’s perfect horror for our present moment.
It Comes at Night reminds me a lot of 10 Cloverfield Lane. As in Dan Trachtenberg’s pulpy 2016 thriller, a catastrophic event transpires, but the action is confined to a single interior space. The plot revolves around a makeshift family held together by a paranoid patriarch. Domestic stability gradually disintegrates, as it becomes apparent that the family’s protector is, in fact, its greatest threat. Both films treat the household as a microcosm of the state, illustrating how leaders control their citizens by exploiting angst about outsiders, whether communists, terrorists, or immigrants.
I don’t blame people for wanting something closer to what the trailers promised. However, if 2017 taught me anything, it’s that fear isn’t always a monster in the dark. Sometimes, it’s just an endless wait.