- Director: Trey Edward Shults
- Writer: Trey Edward Shults
- Stars: Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
Synopsis
A woman in a gas mask tells her sick father that he doesn’t need to fight it any more. The man is clearly in quarantine for some reason. His son in law and grandson helps load the father into a wheelbarrow and the they roll him out into the woods. They shoot the old man in the head and roll him into a grave. Then they burn the body. Credits roll.
Travis, Sarah, and Paul live alone in that house in the woods now that Bud has died. Travis is having a nightmare about Bud when Sarah wakes him up; there’s someone in the house downstairs. Paul knocks the intruder out, and they tie him to a tree outside.
The next day, the man, Will, says he thought the house was abandoned. He was looking for food and supplies for his wife and son, fifty miles away. He talks Paul into cutting him loose. Sarah wants to bring the man’s family to live with them; there is safety in numbers. Paul decides that’s a good idea, so he and Will head to Will’s place to pick up the others.
They get ambushed on the road and kill two men. We don’t see what else transpires, but soon Paul has returned him with Will, Kim, and their son Andrew. Paul lays down the rules; stay in groups of two outside and never, ever go out at night. The next day the family shows the new arrivals how everything works. Throughout all this, we get occasional shots of Travis having nightmares and weird visions. Paul warns Travis not to get too attached or to trust them too much.
The dog runs off into the woods, and the three men give chase. The dog suddenly stops barking, and they all go home. They all know that something “got” the dog. That night, the dog returns, bloody and very sick. Paul and Will put it down outside, and Travis takes it badly. There’s a small chance that little Andrew may have been in the room with the sick dog. The two families decide to stay apart for a couple of days. Travis has a dream that he’s got the disease.
That night, Travis overhears Will and Kim talking about leaving, and Andrew won’t stop crying. He tells Paul what he heard. Paul and Sarah explain that if Kim and Will leave, they are going to want all the water. If they need anything they know where the family lives. Killing them is the only way to stay safe. Will’s ready for them with his own gun, and soon it’s a standoff, with Travis in his bedroom listening to all of it. Things go badly.
The next night, we see Sarah explaining to Travis that he doesn’t need to fight it anymore. Yes, he’s got the plague. He see a flashback showing that Travis did go in the room with the sick dog and then lied about it, indirectly causing the mayhem that followed. In the final scene, we see that Paul and Sarah seem to be infected, but Travis is no longer there.
Commentary
From the very first scene, we see that Bud has a virulent plague, but we don’t really see what that means. I kept waiting for the inevitable zombie attack, but that never happened. That’s not what comes at night. What does come at night? Nightmares and paranoia, that’s what.
This film came out in 2017, but it perfectly demonstrates the paranoia caused by a pandemic. How many times you gotta wash your hands? Were you wearing your gloves and mask? Maybe the families should avoid each other for a while. Did you touch anything? How many times have you asked or been asked these questions in the past year?
This is one of those films where no one actually does anything stupid. It’s one of those situations where everything evolves logically and sensibly, but somehow still manages to go all wrong. What a happy ending!