Horror movie trailers are notoriously difficult to edit. Give away too little, and viewers are bored; give away too much, and the reveal of the monster, or bogeyman (or bogeyWOMAN), or whatever is spoiled. This balancing-line is especially tricky for a horror movie called It Comes at Night, which inevitably begs the question: who or what is the titular “It”? You won’t found out in the trailer above — we know It prefers the night to the day, and isn’t the other It.
But otherwise, it (and It) is a mystery, in the best way possible.
A24 released two of 2016’s most acclaimed genre movies in Green Room and The Witch, and the company is off to a nice start in 2017 with the effectively eerie The Blackcoat’s Daughter. But Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night — his follow-up to Krisha (I like my family; that film made me hate all families) starring Joel Edgerton, Riley Keough, Christopher Abbott, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Carmen Ejogo — looks to be in an atmospheric league of its own. In his glowing review, our own Keith Phipps praised the movie for being an “unnerving, masterful piece of horror filmmaking,” but “it’s the way it explores how its characters prepare to face what’s in the dark that makes it hit home.”
Also, there’s a good dog. That’s the key to a good trailer: good dogs.
It Comes at Night comes out into theaters on June 9.
