It Comes at Night 2017
A24 release about a family holed up in a cabin during an unnamed plague. Both agree it works more as claustrophobic mood than as a jump-scare horror movie, and that the marketing sells it as more traditional than it is.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
Modern Horror and 'It Comes at Night' Director Trey Edward Shults
June 8, 2017/ 43 min/ Sean Fennessey · K. Austin Collins
Sean Fennessey and critic K. Austin Collins on why It Comes at Night plays as mood over scares, then Sean talks to director Trey Edward Shults about grief, family, and Terrence Malick.
25 films across 2 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
It Comes at Night and the state of modern horrorwith K. Austin Collins
Krisha 2015
Shults's first feature, about an estranged relative returning for Thanksgiving. Collins: a horror movie made out of domestic drama, capped by a falling turkey.
The Witch 2015
The other recent A24 horror it gets compared to; Collins likes It Comes at Night more but sees both as families sealed off from society, fighting off an outside force.
The Shining 1980
Cited for paranoia in enclosed spaces.
The Thing 1982
Carpenter's version; Collins loves it and reads It Comes at Night the same way: the monster matters less than how it reshapes the people trapped together.
There Will Be Blood 2007
Named among the operatic movies Shults talked about.
Get Out 2017
Collins wrote about it earlier that year; raised as part of an interesting moment for the genre.
Unfriended 2014
Told entirely through computer screens; Collins admires the audacity of its form even where the ending doesn't land.
It Follows 2014
Collins reads it as much about family and friend bonds, the missing father and unseen mother, as about the unstoppable force.
The Bye Bye Man 2017
A bad horror movie Collins keeps thinking about anyway, his example of the genre still giving you something.
Trey Edward Shults on It Comes at Night
Trey Edward Shults on
It Comes at Night 2017
Shults calls it a personal horror movie; the opening scene came from what he said to his own dying father. Influences he names: books on genocide and Bruegel's painting The Triumph of Death.
Trey Edward Shults on
Krisha 2015
Made for roughly $30,000 over nine days with family and friends after a failed 2012 attempt and a well-received short that drew no investors.
Trey Edward Shults on
There Will Be Blood 2007
The film he watched most while making It Comes at Night, for its mood.
Trey Edward Shults on
The Tree of Life 2011
Shults interned on the birth-of-the-universe second-unit footage as a teenager.
Trey Edward Shults on
Aliens 1986
A childhood favorite he snuck as a videotape and watched on loop overnight.
Trey Edward Shults on
Die Hard 1988
Named alongside Aliens and Terminator as the action he loved as a kid.
Trey Edward Shults on
A Clockwork Orange 1971
One of the films that made him see movies differently as he got older.
Trey Edward Shults on
Raging Bull 1980
Blew his mind on first viewing; he kept rewatching it and it's stayed a favorite since.
Trey Edward Shults on
Boogie Nights 1997
The flow he wants for his next project, kids in high school and a family over a year, moving like a piece of music.
Trey Edward Shults on
Alien 1979
His childhood love, but he says he'd never make an Alien movie even if asked.
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