THE VAST OF NIGHT (2020)

THE VAST OF NIGHT (2020)

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(Drama, Sci-Fi, Mystery) [PG-13]

I think at the lowest level, they send people on errands and play with people's minds. They sway people to do things and think certain ways - so that we stay in conflict, focused on ourselves  - so that we're always ... cleaning house, or losing weight, or dressing up for other people. I think they get inside our heads and make us do destructive things, like drink and overeat. I've seen good people go bad, and smart people go mad.

So this one takes place in the fictional town of Cayuga, New Mexico in the late 1950s. A girl named Fay (played by Sierra McCormick) that works at the phone company and a radio DJ named Everett “The Maverick” Sloan (played by Jake Horowitz) pick up a frequency that basically freaks them the freak out. 

Overall THE VAST OF NIGHT is basically a 91-minute love letter to TWILIGHT ZONE fans. One of the dead giveaways is the opening scene that literally uses a TWILIGHT ZONE-ish opening. The city they are in is also named after Rod Sterling’s production company. Cinematically there are parts of this thing that are pretty fun, like a few drone sequences and fades to black to get you to focus on the words one radio caller is conveying, but later in the film, this same fade to black crap starts getting really annoying. The filter used is pretty drab and what little blues they do throw in are shown via a 1950’s TV frame as a reminder this is basically a long TWILIGHT ZONE love letter like I said before. 

The performances out of McCormick and Horowitz aren’t mind-blowing but they fit this movie perfectly and the script does a great service to the time period. There was also quite a bit of detail put into taking us back to the era all the way down to the period-specific clothing. 

Interesting- The movie mentions electronic cars being radio-controlled as well as electronic roads. It takes place in the late 1950s. The stuff she mentions is from real articles that were published at the time.  One scene where Fay is talking about the future, it sounds a lot like the back of my history book when I was growing up. They always had a section on the future that talked about moon bases and electric everything. Everett makes fun of the TV telephone which is basically the only thing she mentions that happened on a wide scale (basically she’s talking about smartphones). I also thought that it was a nice touch that the radio station's call sign is WOTW which is a nod to the legendary “War Of The Worlds” radio broadcast. 

If you don’t like dialog-heavy movies or the TWILIGHT ZONE this movie probably won’t be for you. For me, it pulled a few of the right nostalgia strings so I am going to give this a 3 out of 7. It won’t blow you away, and unfortunately, the ending feels out of place in something like this without Rod Sterling or someone that can talk like him laying down some awesome moral…then saying “In THE VAST OF NIGHT”.  I wish this movie hadn’t missed so many opportunities and a better payoff for our time. 

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