If you'd like to be surprised by the The Vast of Night film, I don't recommend you to watch the trailer beyond 1:46, because it gives away a part of the plot.
The Vast of Night, movie (2019) - Watch the trailer on YouTube
video © Vast of Night
Article updated: 2022.08.20
The The Vast of Night (2019) is a contemporary fantasy mystery / thriller film. The movie was reviewed by Kadmon.
Product: The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
Original title: The Vast of Night
Series: -
Setting: 1950s fantasy Earth
Product type: Film, Genre: contemporary fantasy mystery / thriller, Style: sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary fantasy, mystery, thriller, aliens
Release: Premiere: 2019.01.26 (Slamdance Film Festival), Release: 2019.05.15
Reviewer: Kadmon, Type: Male, 40s, Preferences: Immersive, logical story, consistent setting, prefers surprises to spoilers, prefers establishing elements before referencing them
Watched: very recent (2021.07), first time
Rating: Good (2+ out of 3 points), Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points)
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This is my review of The Vast of Night, a contemporary fantasy mystery / thriller movie from 2019. It's about a pair investigating some strange events in a small town. The The Vast of Night film is interesting, I recommend it.
The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
image © Vast of Night
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Review (spoiler-free) - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
I didn't know anything about this movie when I ran into it. The title and the cover looked interesting, so I started to watch it without watching the trailer.
The The Vast of Night movie is about a pair investigating some strange events in a small town.
The story is not perfect, but it's very good. The pacing is consistent. The ending might have been a little better, it doesn't have any kind of resolution, the story just ends. I would have preferred if there were some kind of character arc that would have been closed by the end, to put some emotion into the movie. I didn't find major logical problems.
The dialogues are very well written, and that's important, because there's not much action in the movie, most of the story comes through the dialogue.
The cinematography is great. The visuals are mostly good. It's only the lighting that's sometimes feel strange. It might have been just my own experience, but I've felt that the screen sometimes vibrates. I've heard others also complaining about the lights and contrasts, so there might be some problem with it, that could be improved in a later DVD edition.
The characters are good. We don't get to learn a lot about their past, but we get plenty of info about their personality, and that's fine for me. The main actors are very good, convincing, they depict the characters realistically.
The music (by Erick Alexander and Jared Bulmer) is very good, it fits the story perfectly. It reminded me of Monsters (2010).
The movie itself is good, but what makes this impressive that it's a low budget film, basically made by one person. It's somewhat similar in this regard to Monsters and Primer, and I liked both film. It is a story that was thought out before they started filming, and this is somewhat unique nowadays.
The Vast of Night is an interesting contemporary fantasy thriller, I think fans of the genre will enjoy it.
My experience
I was satisfied with The Vast of Night (2019). It's a strange but effective film.
Rating: Good (2+ out of 3 points). The Vast of Night is a well-made film.
Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points). The Vast of Night is interesting, I liked it.
Rewatchability: High. Although it's mostly the surprise of the story that makes you feel interested, but I think the look of the film is captivating, and the characters are relatable enough that you might enjoy watching the film again.
Chance of watching it again: There's a chance. Now that I know the story, there's probably no need to watch it again, but I liked it enough that I might watch it in the right circumstances.
Chance of watching a sequel: High. I'd sure watch it.
The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
image © Vast of Night
Will you enjoy this?
If you like fantasy mystery or thriller movies, you might like The Vast of Night.
If you can get through the first half hour of the movie still interested, from then on it gets into gear, and you might even love this.
If you prefer visuals over story, you'll still find great scenes in this movie.
Watching for plot points
If you are interested in fantastic mystery stories, I think it's worth watching the The Vast of Night movie for the plot points.
Should you watch this on your own screen at home, or is it worth going to the cinema?
The visuals probably look better if you watch it in cinema, but I think you'll get a similar experience.
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The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
image © Vast of Night
Review with spoilers - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
I liked the The Vast of Night movie.
There's a framing device of watching a TV series, the Paradox Theatre (an obvious homage to The Twilight Zone) on a black and white TV, that sometimes reminds us that we are watching a movie, taking the viewers out of immersion. I'm not sure what was the purpose of this, but it didn't take away from the story, so I'm okay with it. I can imagine this might be more problematic for others with different tastes.
It paints a realistic picture about the era:
- Women are not treated seriously.
- Black soldiers are used for dangerous work.
- People are afraid of a Russian invasion.
Cover
The cover of the movie is okay, it doesn't say much, but it doesn't spoil the movie.
The trailer
The trailer is very good, it has a single minor spoiler, but it gives a good picture of what you get if you watch the The Vast of Night movie.
Promise of the first scene
A guy is called to somewhere, while the lights are flickering. I have no clue where will they take this story.
Execution: Well done, the flickering lights actually have some significance.
Plot summary / Synopsis
In a small town (Cayuga, New Mexico), people start to prepare for a basketball game between the local and a visiting team. We meet the reporter (Jake Horowitz as Everett Sloan) from the local radio, and a girl (Sierra McCormick as Fay Crocker) who operates the switchboard of the local telephone. They talk for a while, getting to know each other, before going their own way.
The telephone operator girl notices that a strange signal interrupts the radio when she is listening to the show of the reporter. She asks around her colleagues, but they can't help her. She shows the signal to the reporter, who broadcasts it. They get a caller, who tells them he heard that signal when he was working for the military. There were numerous operations that involved strange happenings, connected by hearing that signal. During one of those operations, the caller got seriously sick. He tells them they can find a copy of that signal at one of the locals. Although that person died, his collection of tapes is in the library.
They get the tape, and start broadcasting it through the radio, when there's an electric blackout, and the station goes dark.
Outside they meet a couple, who tell them they were following something in the sky up to this city. An old lady (Gail Cronauer as Mabel Blanche) calls the reporter on phone, and asks him to visit her. She tells him her story, as she thinks these signals are caused by aliens, who abducted his son. They frequently visit the place, and they talk to people in their sleep. Her son kept talking in a strange language in his dream, and she says those words on the tape recorder. When she told these words to his son, he fell in a trance. She thinks that these aliens are mischievous, and they want to abduct people left alone, while the audience watches the basketball match.
The reporter leaves, and meets with the couple, who ask him what did the old lady told to him. He plays the recorded words to them, and they fall into a trance. He runs away, to find a flying saucer.
We see that the basketball game ends, and people start to leave the place. We see that there's the tape recorder on the field where the reporter stood, but he is nowhere to be seen.
The setting
The story is set on a fantasy Earth, sometime in the 1960s, I'm not sure whether it's stated somewhere, but they refer to an 1970s date as the future. For me, the place and clothing was convincing enough. (Edit: According to the director, it takes place in 1958 November.)
The story is set somewhere at the South border of the USA.
There are aliens in this world.
The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
image © Vast of Night
The aliens
The aliens tend to abduct people. Sometimes whole trains full of people.
Sometimes they leave some people, who talk in their sleep in a strange language.
Sometimes they influence babies, to talk in their strange language.
The aliens talk to people in their sleep. People sometimes talk in a strange language in their sleep during this. When someone records these words, and plays it for them, these people fall into a trance. They can command people to do things. They probably like it when people waste their time on useless or self-destructive things.
The aliens have a flying saucer. Probably this is what emits the strange signals, that's caught by the phone operator.
When they abduct people, they get them off from the ground. They either raise or teleport them.
The message of the story
I'm not sure there's one. "Don't stay alone"? "Don't sit in the car of strangers"?
The structure of the story
The scenes of the The Vast of Night film are shown in sequential order, following the same storyline. There are flashback scenes when people remember past events.
There is no single viewpoint character, but the girl, Fay, is close to that, as she is in almost every scene.
We get an almost usual dramatic structure, with an introduction, action, and an abrupt ending.
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Things I liked
- The continuous shot with the kid was very cool.
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How does it compare to the other works of the creators?
This is the first film of the writer / director (Andrew Patterson), so there's nothing to compare this to. However, I'm now curious about his next movies.
This is also the first film of the other writer (Craig W. Sanger).
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The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
image © Vast of Night
Analysis of the story - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
I mostly liked the story, I didn't find problems that would have prevented me from enjoying The Vast of Night.
Fan-service
Scenes and elements from previous works:
H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898): The TWOT might be a reference to the story, probably referencing the 1938 radio play by Orson Welles.
Problematic elements
The baby: I'm not sure the story needs the baby in the end.
Aliens: There's a very long establishing scene for the alien language, and its effects on their minions. However, there's only one time we see it in action. There probably could have been more scenes, especially with characters that are closer to the protagonists, to make it more shocking. For example, if the baby also got in trance, or the telephone girl, that would have been more interesting.
More possible explanations: I get it that there's probably a message the writer wanted to get through the old lady, but there could have been more plausible explanations for the happenings, beyond the aliens. The radio guy touched on the Russian's involvement, but it was not explored further. It would have been probably a more interesting story, if we had some other theories to think about, before being confronted by the choice of the writer - the aliens. For example, after we got some info on the extra-terrestrial origins by the phone caller, the old lady could have blamed everything on supernatural entities, and her son could have been taken by some evil spirit from Native American mythology, or something like that.
Unanswered questions
- What did the aliens really want?
- What happened to the reporter?
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Possibilities of improvement
- Ditch the framing device. For me - who didn't watch black&white sci-fi TV series -, it didn't add anything to the movie.
How it could have been better?
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Behind the scenes
Thoughts about the reviews of others
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The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
image © Vast of Night
Uses for the film - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
Plot
- Aliens want to abduct people.
- Aliens have puppets among the humans.
Scenes
- Most of the scenes are good to show how a small town looks like in the middle of the 20th Century.
Scenario ideas - Role-playing game scenario ideas
- The team finds some strange lead. If they investigate, they find some strange occurrences, including people getting abducted.
Scenario ideas - Wargame scenario ideas
Abduction (solo play): The player sets up a playing area. Designate a circle (or put a circle template) in the middle. Outside of the circle, put some civilian models on the playing area. At the beginning of the first turn, choose a civilian randomly, that model will be influenced. That model will move towards the circle in the shortest path. Then the rest of the models can act. They need to win a turn of close combat against the influenced model to subdue them, removing them from the game. On the beginning of every further turns, roll a d6. On a 6, another model will get influenced. If an influenced model moves beyond the circle, it gets removed from play, and put into the group of abducted. The game lasts until enough models get in that group. It can be a number set before the game, or you can roll a d6 after each abduction, and on a roll of 1 they have enough, and leave. If there's no influenced model on the playing area, the abducters also leave. The player wins if the abducter leaves before the number of abducted gets enough. The abducter wins if they abduct enough models.
Two player game: The abducter player choses the model to be influenced. The influenced models are moved by the abducter player.
Soldiers: Some of the civilians are soldiers. They can shoot influenced models. However, if the abducter player influences a soldier, it can also use it to shoot at other models.
Miniatures - 1/50-1/60 (28-32mm scale)
Civilians: Human-sized (S3) modern (advanced) human female / male civilian.
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Similar stories - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
Short stories
Novels
H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898): In a then contemporary setting, aliens invade the Earth.
Graphic novels
Movies
Independence Day (1996): In a then contemporary setting, aliens invade the Earth.
The Mysterians (1957): In a then contemporary setting, aliens invade the Earth.
The War of the Worlds (1953): In a then contemporary setting, aliens invade the Earth. Based on the War of the Worlds novel.
War of the Worlds (2005): In a then contemporary setting, aliens invade the Earth. Based on the War of the Worlds novel.
Uchû dai sensô / Battle in Outer Space, movie (1959): In a then contemporary setting, aliens invade the Earth.
TV series & episodes
Computer games
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Frequently asked questions - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
Is the The Vast of Night film based on a book or comics?
No, The Vast of Night is not based on either books or comics.
Is the The Vast of Night film a remake or reboot?
No, the The Vast of Night film is neither a remake nor a reboot.
Is there a post credit scene in The Vast of Night? Does The Vast of Night have end credit scenes?
No, there's no post credit scene in The Vast of Night.
Where can I see The Vast of Night? Where can I watch The Vast of Night online? Is The Vast of Night available on Netflix? Is The Vast of Night on Amazon?
As of 2021.12.15, The Vast of Night is only available on Amazon Prime Video.
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Resources - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
Information
IMDB: The Vast of Night (2019): Database article.
WikiPedia: The Vast of Night: Database article.
Letterboxd: The Vast of Night (2019): Database article.
Rotten Tomatoes: The Vast of Night 2019: Database article.
Creation
: Concept art article.¤
Reviews with no spoilers - The Vast of Night film (2019)
: Review video about the The Vast of Night film with no spoilers.¤
Reviews with spoilers - The Vast of Night film (2019)
: Review article of the The Vast of Night movie, with spoilers. Includes a very detailed plot summary.¤
Analysis - The Vast of Night movie (2019)
: Analysis video, explaining the finale of The Vast of Night.¤
RedLetterMedia: Half in the Bag: Vast of Night and Aquaslash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNz4H4V-SBI
Chris Stuckmann: The Vast of Night - Movie Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HEcnacyI_8
Think Story: THE VAST OF NIGHT Ending Explained!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRICiygCxcQ
https://reeltimeflicks.com/2020/06/09/the-vast-of-night-2020/
https://twitter.com/RichTeaBizcuits/status/1270478456694996997
Klág Dávid (for Index): There are many similar sci-fi movies, but very few that are exactly like this: Review article with minor spoilers.
Bacsadi Zsófia (for Magyar Narancs / Hungarian Orange): The Vast of Night: Capsule review article with spoilers.
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Buying the product - The Vast of Night, movie (2019)
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Have you seen the The Vast of Night film? How do you like the movie? Would you recommend it to others? Do you know reviews or resources you'd like to add? What further thoughts do you have about it? Tell your opinion in the comments!
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