The Vast of Night (2019) is one of those little pearls in science-fiction that come out of nowhere but are a very simple and yet delicious exercise of low-budget filmmaking. It has been directed by debutant Andrew Patterson from a screenplay written by the also newbies James Montague and Craig W. Sanger.
The official plot description of The Vast of Night (2019) shared by the Toronto International Film Festival reads:
A mysterious frequency descends on a small New Mexico town in the twilight of the 1950s, forever changing the lives of two youths as they investigate and encounter its origin. Spanning a single night, director Andrew Patterson‘s transfixing debut barrels its characters through a tribute to the starry-eyed speculations of Rod Serling, as Patterson and his compatriots meticulously render a bygone era. It’s one that eschews empty nostalgia through judicious shading of history’s insidious margins, and which infectiously captures the wonder of technology, as well as the unsettling risks that come with peering into the unknown. Intermittently framed within the hazy black-and-white scan lines of a television broadcast, Patterson‘s scope frequently widens to a vivid roaming gaze that fluidly connects its plucky protagonists through a series of increasingly gobsmacking long takes. In other scenes, the camera settles with intense concentration on a single subject, achieving taut suspense.
With an obvious influence by the genre TV classics like The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), The Vast of Night (2019) is starred by Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, Cheyenne Barton, Mark Banik, Gregory Peyton, Adam Dietrich, Mallorie Rodak, Mollie Milligan, Ingrid Fease, Brandon Stewart, Kirk Griffith, Nika Sage McKenna, Brett Brock, and the voice of Bruce Davis.
Since its world premiere at Slamdance Film Festival, The Vast of Night (2019) had a long film festivals run along the last year 2019, including Overlook Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, Beyond Fest, Hamptons International Film Festival, Festa del Cinema di Roma, Chicago International Film Festival, and the already mentioned and prestigious Toronto International Film Festival. Since last week, the movie is available on Amazon Prime for Video on Demand. Here you can watch the official final trailer for The Vast of Night (2019).
