It Comes at Night

Paul lives in a fortified house deep in the woods with his wife Sarah and teenage son Travis, following strict rules to survive an unnamed plague that has devastated the world. The film opens with the mercy-killing of Sarah's infected father — a matter-of-fact act of love and necessity that sets the film's moral temperature. Travis is haunted by nightmares involving his dead grandfather and the red door, the house's single sealed entrance.

A stranger named Will breaks in one night, looking for supplies for his wife and young son. Paul, after interrogating him harshly, decides to take a chance and bring the other family in. For a time the arrangement works — shared meals, a tentative warmth. But the house is small and the rules are rigid, and paranoia accumulates in the margins.

The red door is found open one morning with no explanation. The family dog disappears into the woods and returns sick. Andrew falls ill with what his parents insist is just a cold. One night Travis sees Will and Kim trying to leave in secret with the boy. What follows is quick and irreversible: a confrontation, a struggle, gunshots. Will, Kim, and Andrew are killed. Whether they were innocent — whether Andrew truly had the plague — is never answered.

The film ends in silence. Paul, Sarah, and Travis sit at the table. Travis is coughing. Sarah stares at nothing. They are alive and alone, and whatever they've protected themselves from, they have not protected themselves from each other.