One year after the release of the Robert Eggers-directed The Witch, A24 returned to movie theaters with It Comes at Night, which made its way into theaters on June 9, 2017.
Directed by Trey Edward Schults, who had previously directed the A24-distributed film Krisha, It Comes at Night doesn’t often come up when horror fans are discussing A24’s best horror efforts, but the low-budget horror film did manage to scare up $19.7 million at the worldwide box office along with an 88% Fresh score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Many horror fans weren’t so kind about the movie, however, with the general consensus at the time being that the film’s trailers set poor expectations for what the movie would be like. The audience score for It Comes at Night on Rotten Tomatoes sits at 44%, and though that’s not uncommon for arthouse horror films, there’s no denying that It Comes at Night never managed to make the splash that many of A24’s other horror movies were able to. I’m of course talking about films like The Witch, Hereditary, Midsommar, Talk to Me and the list goes on.
But movies get multiple chances at finding their audience these days, with theatrical rollouts being followed by VOD releases, Blu-ray releases, and various appearances on the countless different streaming services that we now have at our fingertips. And It Comes at Night has indeed found a new audience, as it’s currently one of the most streamed movies on MAX!
At the time of writing this article – January 18, 2024 – It Comes at Night is the #4 most-watched movie on MAX, seven years after the film originally released in movie theaters.
The film, which just recently arrived on MAX, is currently behind only Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the CNN doc Chowchilla, and the Mark Wahlberg-starring Ted 2 on MAX‘s movie charts.
It’s proof that movies can get a second wind through streaming, with services like MAX putting older movies into the feeds of subscribers and giving them a chance to discover them as if they’re brand new. It’s not uncommon for Netflix’s top-streamed movies to be random films that nobody paid much attention to when they originally released, but streaming allows for those movies to break through and – if only for a moment – re-enter the discourse machine. In some cases, the distance allows fans to reevaluate movies they didn’t care for at the time.
It Comes at Night may not have been embraced back in 2017, but it has been reevaluated in more recent years. Particularly when the COVID-19 pandemic kept us all in our homes, with the social isolation themes of A24’s horror movie suddenly feeling more relevant than ever.
Josue Valdez wrote here on BD back in 2020, just a few months into the pandemic, “My first experience with It Comes at Night was intense. As the credits rolled, I remained frozen to my seat on the couch, feeling the trickle of each warm tear escaping the corners of my eyes, chest heavy with a rhythmic, meditative sob which made no sound. I was in grief.
“Over the years since, the film has managed to make its way into my recommendations. Of course I felt miserable after that first viewing, but I couldn’t deny the powerful storytelling, strong visuals, and effectiveness of its horror. It Comes at Night came and went from the public consciousness with nary a whisper, and to me, that is a shame in need of absolution.”
When’s the last time you watched It Comes at Night? Are you due for a revisit? Maybe you’ll get a lot more out of it here in 2024 than you did back in 2017. Find it on MAX tonight.
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In the film, Joel Edgerton plays a man who 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 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.” Riley Keough, Carmen Ejogo, Christopher Abbot, and Kelvin Harrison, Jr. also star in It Comes at Night.
The post A24 Horror Movie ‘It Comes at Night’ Has Been Near the Top of Max’s Streaming Charts This Week appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.