The Vast Of Night (2019) | Amazon Original Independent Sci-fi

I watched this last night, thought it was brilliant.

It's a small scale story about a switchboard operator and a small town radio host who discover a mysterious sound coming through on a radio frequency and investigate its origins.

The opening of it is a bit rough, the character we're following is a very fast talked and you're looking at the back of his head so it's quite challenging to get through, but there's nothing too important that you miss though, and it hits its stride pretty quickly.

Once it got into it it was one of the most engrossing films I've watched. The characters we focus on are brilliant, it's not just about the mystery, they feel like real people, they're interesting, they're entertaining, and I was so invested in them that there were points where I was shouting at the TV. You're following most of the story hearing the same things they're hearing so you really feel like you're with them.

I have read some criticsm of it that it doesn't stick the landing, and I do kind of agree with it. It has that difficult issue of all low budget science fiction of how you deal with not having the budget to show much of anything. Here they deal with it having a 30 second effects shot of a UFO, but that's far more awe inspiring for the characters than the audience.

The more I think about it the more I think it would have been a perfect ending if he plays the recording from the woman and the car crashes and by the time they're rescued the signal's gone, the aliens have left and the tape's destroyed. We'd have seen enough that it's not ambiguous for us, but they don't have enough that they can prove it. Or they could all be killed in the car crash and then it cuts to people leaving the game if you want to be really dark.

Despite that, I still think it was great, highly recommend.

Submitted June 20, 2023 at 09:10PM by NemesisRouge https://ift.tt/2OxuSMC