It Comes At Night is probably my favorite horror movie of the year so far because of
the psychological quandaries the film poses.
Questions like, Who opened the door?
What is "it"?
Is the ending of the movie dream or reality?
In this video, I'll be giving my interpretations on some of the many ambiguities posed by writer/director
Trey Edward Shults, who I'll be referring to as Shultsy for the rest of this video for
some reason.
Just for clarity's sake, let's do a quick recap of all the character names.
The original family is led by Paul and his wife is Sarah.
They have a teenage son is named Travis.
The guest family consists of the father, Will, who is married to Kim and they have a young
boy named Andrew.
There will be spoilers ahead, so if you haven't seen this movie, just pause this video, spend
the next 97 minutes watching it, then unpause this video.
Ready?
Go.
Who Opened The Door?
The end of the film is driven by the introduction of the sickness into the household.
This starts one night when Travis is awake, as he often is, to find the little boy Andrew
sleeping in the middle of the living room.
He wakes him up and returns him to his room, where he crawls into bed with his parents,
who don't seem to wake up.
As Travis is returning to bed he hears something in the house.
He approaches the door and finds that it's partially open, with their dog, who had run
away earlier dying on the floor.
This of course causes panic and finger pointing from both families.
Paul worries that Andrew wandered out and caught the disease from the dog, and he uses
the fact that Andrew was out of his room as evidence that he may be a sleepwalker.
Will points out the fact that Andrew can barely reach the doorhandles then implies that Travis
may have actually been the one to open the door.
The obvious flaw in that story is that we know Andrew was out of his room, so unless
someone opened it for him, it's proof he's able to reach the doorknob.
But the possibility of it being Travis still exists.
Kim knows he has sleep issues and tends to wander around after dark due to their prior
kitchen conversation in the middle of the night.
Kim and Will both seem to be fairly innocent.
We can see them sleeping while when Travis brings Andrew back to their room.
It's easy to assume that Paul and Sarah would also be asleep at the time, and that
they would have no reason to open the door and endanger themselves like that.
After thinking about it further, I don't think Sarah could be responsible because of
her generally non-malicious attitude.
I can, however, come up with a reason that Paul might have been the one to open it.
Paul is very hostile towards Will as soon as they meet.
The only reason, it would, that he even allows Will to survive at first is that Will mentions
the fact that he and his family have food but no water.
Paul formulates the plan to have them move in, use them to learn how to be more self-sustainable,
as we see in the scenes with Travis learning from Will; before framing them and killing
them in order to gain sole access to the livestock while maintaining trust of his own family.
If that is his plan, it is a most devious one.
Some might go so far as to say that he lured Will in, using the fire set at the beginning
of the movie to attract potential victims to take advantage of.
However, while this is a possibility, I don't think that's what happened.
Paul knows about his son's sleep issues and, while I think he will do immoral things
to protect his family, I don't see him doing something that would potentially put them
in danger, especially so soon after having to put down his own father.
I believe there is another possibility.
So when they find the dog, he's lying inside the house, so he's out past the red door,
but not all the way outside past the last door.
In simpler terms, if you compare their setup to an airlock, he's inside the airlock,
meaning someone, or something, opened that door to let the dog in.
You might argue that the doors were just accidentally left open, which already seems like an unlikely
possibility to me given how seriously they take security, but I think the main factor
that disproves that is the symptoms of the dog.
The human symptoms seem to include large boils, excessive perspiration and excretion of blood
from the mouth.
The dog however looks to have excessive bleeding and from what I remember, a huge gash in the
body, and while we don't know how the symptoms differ from animals to humans, I would say
it looks more like the dog was attacked than diseased.
So then the question becomes, who attacked the dog?
In the scene where the dog runs away, it's basically left open ended.
He runs off, seems to be barking at something, goes out of sight, and then suddenly just
stops barking.
You could make the case that that's what "it" is, some kind of monster or mutant
that comes out at night to spread the disease.
And while the idea of that is pretty creepy, it's almost less unsettling than the alternative,
which is that other humans have found out where they live, come into their house, and
killed their dog to try to spread the disease to them.
There's actually more evidence to support this theory than the monster theory, because
when Paul and Will go to retrieve Will's family, they are attacked by other humans.
For seemingly no reason other than to possibly jack some supplies.
While we never find out the true intentions of their aggression thanks in part to Paul's
overactive trigger finger, we at least know that there are people out there in the wilderness
who want to kill Paul.
For all we know, they were already on their way to kill Paul and his family when he and
Will set out.
So based on all of the information we have, I would theorize that one of the marauders
from the wild captured the dog, infected it and killed it, then dumped it back in the
house to try and destroy the family, with the hope of later driving them out and salvaging
their supplies.
What Is It?
When I first saw the movie in theaters, it ended, the credits rolled, and the first thing
I, or anyone else in the theater said, was, "so wait, why is it called It Comes At Night?"
Shultsy hasn't given us an answer on that.
I'm going to go ahead and assume that he's not talking about Stephen King's IT, or
the It that Follows people.
We already talked about the possibility of there being some kind of monster out there,
so let's talk about those possibilities.
I think the reactions of the dog are the best evidence for the theory.
If there is a creature out there, that's probably what is causing his animals instincts
to go on high alert.
It wouldn't be that different from how animals seem to have a sense for real predators or
natural disaster.
Some say that animals and little kids are somehow on closer wavelengths to the paranormal,
and the two who seem to freak out the most before that fateful night are in fact the
dog and the child.
I personally don't think Shultsy intended anything paranormal going on though.
"It" could be more of a metaphorical connotation.
Could "it" be a reference to the sickness?
That would seem to make sense, seeing as how we are never given a proper name for this
disease.
And if you think about it, all the characters who have, or seem to have this illness appear
to get their symptoms at night.
The grandfather at the beginning of the movie is put down at night, and the dog shows up
dying at night, Andrew starts coughing and crying at night and of course Travis has both
nightmares about the sickness and the sickness itself seems to come up at night.
And while we're on the topic, another possibility is that "it" is supposed to represent
dreams or nightmares, which almost always come at night.
Unless you're me and you stay up making YouTube videos instead…
I NEED SLEEP.
But if you think about it, dreams kind of makes sense because all the paranoia, all
the damage to Travis's mental health ties back to his dreams.
He can't sleep because his nightmares are haunted by the sickness.
His waking hours are all spent trying to strengthen the family's protection against the sickness.
In a way, he has a separate disease of his own, the one that lives in his head.
And also, without him being up and about at night, they probably never catch Will, and
of course, he probably never contracts the disease from either Andrew or the dog, whichever
one of the two were the ones to transfer it.
But above all of that I think that "it", is something far scarier.
Scarier than some monster out in the woods.
Scarier than some crazy nomads competing for resources.
Scarier than a disease that has wiped humanity to its brink.
What I'm talking about, is fear itself.
When you think about it and dig a little bit deeper, fear and paranoia are what drive all
the suspense in the entire film.
When Will first breaks into the house, Travis and his family fear the unknown intruder.
When Paul kills the marauders in the wild, he does so out of fear.
The two families drift apart and become paranoid about what they don't know about each other.
That's out of fear.
That turns them against each other and they come to fear each other.
But it's also important to think about what builds this fear.
Most of the suspense comes when the families are locked away in their own rooms, discussing
their lack of trust for each other because of what they don't know about each other's
past.
Discussing what should be done with the other party.
Discussing morals and safety precautions all due to fear of the unknown.
These conversations, by nature, take place in private.
After sun has gone down.
From the safety of their own bedrooms.
It comes, at night.
Water vs Fire
You may have noticed a couple of opposing motifs in this movie, and please go ahead
and let me know which ones you've noticed in the comments.
I'm going to talk about Water and Fire and what they symbolize in the film.
Fire and water are opposites.
They cancel each other out.
However, they are both used for the same purpose in It Comes At Night: cleansing.
At the beginning of the film, fire is used to cleanse the disease from the house when
they burn Travis's Grandfather.
The next step for their family is to try to move on from their loss, and not long after,
Will shows up looking for supplies.
Paul captures him and ties him to the tree, then waits it out to make sure he doesn't
have the sickness.
That's when Paul makes his prisoner an offer.
He asks him to tell the truth, and in exchange, he will supply him with water.
So this is the first example of someone using water to cleanse and achieve purity, even
if it is less directly than other examples.
Throughout the film, as Travis struggles with nightmares of him suffering from the sickness
or contracting the sickness, he periodically takes showers to try to not only literally
keep himself clean and disease free, but also to try to clear his mind and hopefully help
improve his situation.
I would also it's no coincidence that the shower head is so pathetic and depressing
and barely manages to keep him covered, similar to how his current living situation is currently
barely keeping him covered, keeping him alive.
We do end up seeing Travis in the bathroom again, but this time there is no running water
on him, just a black liquid running from his nose.
The precautions that have been taken didn't work and now Paul will have to turn back to
the only cleansing solution that has been known to work, the fire.
I'm going to explore this topic a little deeper in the upcoming segment, so just remember
what I've said about two opposite elements being used for a similar purpose.
Who Are The Real Bad Guys?
Something that It Comes At Night does differently than a lot of films, is that it remains objective
about it's characters and allows the audience to take sides based on what they see.
For the most part, we as the viewers are not manipulated into choosing one side or another,
except maybe by one fact, which is that we are introduced to Paul's family first and
meet them in the midst of a tragedy, the loss of a love one, causing us to want to feel
some compassion for them.
For much of the story, Travis seems to be our protagonist; his parents: the allies.
However, before the end of the movie I was beginning to question Paul and Sarah's morality
in the situation, and have come to think that they may be the real antagonists of the story.
So let's take a step back and analyse everything that has happened from an analytical and psychological
standpoint.
Paul loses his father to the disease, and as result becomes extremely strict about the
family's routine and safety precautions.
We don't really know anything that happens before this, only that the epidemic didn't
take place that long ago because Travis still remembers what life was like before it.
Will breaks into the house and Paul shows no mercy striking him down and taking him
prisoner.
At this point I'd like to point that the story isn't necessarily told from Paul's
point of view.
Both characters have unknown pasts, which are occasionally talked about, but it's
up to us to figure out if they are lying.
Well played Shultsy.
Well played.
Next thing you know, Paul is moving in Will and his family.
He doesn't really give them much of an option, given his paranoia about having someone out
there in the world who knows where they are and knows they have resources.
So if we can just run with the idea of Will being the protagonist, then this is his inciting
incident, this is what kicks the story into motion for him.
On the way out, they are both attacked by marauders, but eventually gain the upper hand.
Paul finds himself in a position where he can either let the guy go or kill him.
Will is thinking logically and suggests that they try to get some information out of him,
but Paul just goes ahead and pulls the trigger.
This shows something about both of their characters.
This also won't be the last example of Paul withholding or avoiding the release of information,
and as someone who is supposedly a victim, behaviour as such seems awfully suspicious.
And then to add to that, when Will questions him on it, he becomes accusatory, as if he's
trying to shift blame off of himself.
Remember what I said about water and fire?
Let's continue to analyse the story, by framing the characters as these elements.
Will is water, trying to cleanse the world and do what's best for his family in a logical,
non-destructive way.
Paul is fire, he'll burn through anything to stay clean -- lives, resources, pets, friends
and even family.
Let's fast forward a little bit to the part where the dog runs off.
First, Travis gives chase.
Will takes off after him, and it would seem his intention is to protect him from whatever
happens.
Paul on the other hand, is just FURIOUS at Travis for endangering himself like that.
This could be an essential turning point in the movie, another potential opportunity to
learn more information.
Answers to questions like, "What got the dog so riled up?"
"What lies beyond their property?"
"What got to the dog that made it suddenly stop barking?"
Paul doesn't allow any of this to be answered and uses his dominant position in the household
to retract both of them and cut off any chance at learning more.
Since his goal is to protect his family, he really could benefit from such information.
I think this is the point in the story where Will starts to have second thoughts and realize
that although Paul may have good intentions as all good anti-heroes do, he could be going
about it in a harmful way.
He's fire.
Will's water.
This key difference between them continues to cause clash through the climax of the film.
Andrew gets sick and they both have different ways of going about it.
Will wants to just leave and fend for themselves out in the wild.
Paul is uncompromising in his plan to kill Andrew.
This part is told from Paul's point of view in order to maintain the suspense of the true
condition Andrew is in.
Most movies are told through the protagonist, but I just don't think that's the case
here.
The guy goes on to kill Will, then as Kim and Andrew are clearly just terrified and
trying to escape, he shoots them down as well.
It's also heavily implied that he does the same to his own son.
I'm not even trying to suggest that he is entirely in the wrong.
I think the best villains in fiction have a good reason for what they are doing, and
what makes them evil is the way they go about it.
I think it's reasonable to say that Paul is scarred from what happened to him at the
beginning of the epidemic, and these scars have made him jaded and unrelenting.
I feel like he's endured something that anyone in his situation would have the same
reaction to.
Did Travis Infect Andrew?
This theory is going to be a little shorter, and I don't necessarily think it's true,
but I'd like to bring it up so that we can open a discussion in the comments.
WHICH TOTALLY WON'T TURN INTO A SHITSTORM CAUSE THE COMMENTS ARE SUCH A HAPPY PLA--
But anyways, what do you guys think about the idea that when Travis took Andrew's
hand to take him back to bed, that he was infecting the child, not the other way around.
The only evidence against it is that Andrew gets his symptoms first, but who knows, maybe
something like that would show up sooner in a child.
I also think it's possible that Travis has actually had the sickness for quite a while,
and it first began to manifest itself as a psychological attack, which merely precedes
the physical symptoms.
That would also explain why we hear Andrew crying at night after he gets infected before
we ever see if he actually has the boils or anything.
Anyways, just some food for thought.
Or should I say, pudding bread for thought…?
What is the disease?
What does it represent?
Not much is known about what the disease is actually supposed to be or what it's supposed
to represent.
We just have a couple of small clues, the first of which is this painting shown at the
outset.
I researched it and found out it is called The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel.
Shultsy actually talked about this painting in an interview with BirthMoviesDeath, link
in description, where he said the following:
"So I'd seen the timeless house I wanted in the film, and I saw the family that should
live in it, but I wasn't quite sure why.
And I had this book on Bruegel, and I stumbled on The Triumph of Death painting, and found
out he made it during the Black Death, the bubonic plague, and I was just haunted by
it, this vision of skeletons literally pulling people to their graves in a hellscape.
I was drawn to it."
Shultsy has also mentioned in several interviews that this movie was essentially binge-written
at the time of his father's death, so this ended up being a very personal piece for him.
His dad died of cancer after a lot of suffering, so it would seem that the pain that comes
to the victim and their family during cancer treatment inspired the effects of the disease
in the movie.
Obviously cancer isn't contagious, so I see the fictional disease as a combination
of the effects of cancer with some of the symptoms and characteristics of bubonic plague
in the 14th century.
Is the ending a dream?
I was originally going to wrap it up here, but after surfing around the internet and
reading some reviews, I decided to cover one more theory, the idea that the dark ending
was merely a dream, that the true disease is actually a mental disease, and Travis is
being driven crazy by it.
The theory proposes that his obsessive paranoia with the disease causes him to lose touch
of what's real and what's not, a la Inception.
This causes him to fall into a nightmare, which, by the end of the movie, he is unable
to pull himself out of.
The theory is backed on the presentation of dream scenes in comparison to the climactic
scene.
The dreams are all shot in anamorphic lenses, which basically give the camera a much wider
angle of view, making characters look smaller and less significant.
The music in the climax was also similar to the dream sequences.
I like both of those choices, but I just don't think Shultsy was trying to say that this
scene was a literal nightmare.
I think it was more along the lines of "now your worst nightmares have become reality."
This is what it's like to live a nightmare.
I'm basing this off one thing, and one thing only: the headspace of Trey Edward Shults.
Writing this movie days after losing his father, he had to have had a pretty dark outlook on
life.
Things probably felt hopeless.
He probably felt helpless.
Living in a nightmare, that he knew he couldn't wake up from.
So if you enjoyed this movie, let's all show our support to Shultsy.
Go ahead and like this video if you'd be interested in seeing him direct another horror
film and let's see how things stack up.
As for me, my name is CZ and I too direct psychological horror movies among a few other
things.
Check out these links to see some of the stuff I do here on the channel, and if any of it
looks interesting to you, then go ahead and subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every
week.
You'll also need to ring that deathbell for notifications and I'll see you in the
next one.
Assuming we both survive.
For more infomation >> Ponca City residents wake up to find FBI agents raiding home in hazmat gear - Duration: 1:25. 
For more infomation >> 8 Ball Pool - NEW 8BALL FANATIC CUE HACK WITH FREEDOM UNLIMITED CASH&COINS FREE [100%] REAL 2017 - Duration: 4:21. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét