A Sound In The Darkness

 The Vast of Night (2019) – In a small Arizona town, a local radio DJ, and a telephone switchboard operator hear something that may change the world.

Directed by Andrew Patterson

Starring Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz

Why I Liked It – A beautiful, intelligent piece of science fiction

It has become clear to me I need to expand the scope of my movie viewing.  While I love the experience of watching a movie on the big screen, movie theater ticket sales continue to suffer from the pandemic.  2021 saw a 70% increase over 2020, but still lagged far behind 2019. 2022 continues to show growth, but remains some 40% behind pre-pandemic numbers. In its place streaming services have become go to sites for new movies.  Not only the shared screens concepts with motion picture companies but also their own offerings.  I spent a lot of time watching streaming services during the pandemic (I’ll talk about that more in some upcoming posts), so I needed to include some of those movies here.

For no particular reason, other than it sounded like a cool concept, “The Vast of Night” gets to lead the way.  I’ve mentioned before that I am a lifelong science fiction fan, but that I’m often disappointed by the movies.  Too much of the thoughtful part of sci-fi gets shoved aside for the special effects.  Not so here.

Everett (Horowitz) is the hotshot young high school aged local radio DJ.  He’s pretty good and the biggest media fish in his very small (town) pond.  His fame makes him a little cocky, which adds to his charm for his friend and admirer, Fay.  She works as a part-time telephone switchboard operator (it’s the 1950s), but wants to be on the radio, too. With her new tape recorder, she follows Everett around and records some people gathering for the big high school basketball game.  Within a few hours, both these young people will be in pursuit of a strange sound that interrupts both the radio signal and the phone service.  Both the mystery and the danger increase as the night progresses.

This movie has one of the slowest of slow burn beginnings I can remember.  Usually, that’s an enormous red flag, but the characters are interesting enough that I recommend hanging with the movie.  That slow burn start builds tension as a normal day spins out of understanding. Once the action starts, it’s a lot of fun.  The ending is a bit predictable/cliche, but that’s forgivable too by the time you get there.

“The Vast Of Night” was shot for under a million dollars, which is also a great way to control the urge to go overboard with special effects.  There is a LOT of attention to getting the historical/setting details right, which gives a solid “feel” to the whole thing.  Given the budget and it is a directorial debut for Patterson who also co-wrote the script), there’s not much to dislike about this one.

A slow burn beginning is the fuse for a fun, intelligent piece of science fiction.

Rating – **** Recommended