From The Witch to Moonlight, Green Room to Swiss Army Man, A24 is currently in the midst of a terrific streak of movies that are at once critically acclaimed and commercially viable. Sure, they may not light up the box office charts year in, year out, but the company’s impressive lineup – barring maybe Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Trees – cannot be overstated.
Hoping to extend that purple patch long into 2017 is It Comes at Night, a chilling psychological horror from Trey Edward Shults of Krisha fame. Nipping at the heels of yesterday’s truly unsettling poster reveal (see below), we now have our first peek at the film in motion, and it’s enough to send a shiver or two down the spine.
Headed up by Joel Edgerton, Riley Keough (The Girlfriend Experience) and Carmen Ejogo, It Comes at Night follows a father (Edgerton) fighting to protect his family from what he believes to be a supernatural force. Turns out said force may only be a prelude to the horrors in store, with the official synopsis teasing the events that unfold when feelings of paranoia and mistrust bubble to the fore.
A man learns that the evil stalking his family home may be only a prelude to horrors that come from within. Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, the tenuous domestic order he has established with his wife and son is put to the ultimate test with the arrival of a desperate young family seeking refuge. Despite the best intentions of both families, paranoia and mistrust boil over as the horrors outside creep ever-closer, awakening something hidden and monstrous within him as he learns that the protection of his family comes at the cost of his soul.
We don’t exactly know what ‘it’ is – a malevolent supernatural force, perhaps? Or just the human condition at its most primitive? But It Comes at Night, and it’ll lurch into U.S. theaters on August 25th. Exactly when Trey Edward Shults’ thriller will make its way across the pond is up for question, but we’ll notify you if and when A24 lock down a UK release date.
