The Blood in the Snow Film Festival hosted the world premiere of Scott Leaver’s (first feature film) The Devil Comes at Night. A horror film that happens all in one location over the course of one night. A dark and demonic night.
After a bar fight with a racist guy, a washed-up boxer named Ben (Ryan Allen – Get Rich or Die Trying, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) is dropped off at the farmhouse of his recently deceased father. He is there in an attempt to claim his inheritance. While he is searching through the house, his friend Jack (Elias Zarou – X-Men, Police Academy 3: Back in Training) tries to make things right with the locals.
All Ben knows is that what he is looking for is in a safe in the farmhouse. He just needs to find that safe and then plans to leave right away. But he can’t do either. Find the safe or leave. Ben cannot leave because the house is surrounded by a group of locals led by a man named Mason (Jason Martorino – appeared in episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale and Nakita). They are not really angry. Rather they are a group of people belonging to one cult and want to….well, you guess…
While trying to keep away from them, he discovers that a woman has been hiding in the house. The woman, Amy (Adrienne Kress – appeared in episodes of The Expanse and American Gods), was a friend of his father’s. She explains how his father was doing research on the demonic cult. The two work together to get out of the house and stay alive.
The film is going along pretty decently as far as low budget horrors go. It is interesting watching Ben trying to figure out the weirdness of what is going on. The tension builds up in the dark confines of the farmhouse. But you can always feel the danger that is right around the corner. Or more precisely, just outside the door. It is a quirky film but that works for it. Most of does.
That is until almost the end when there is a change of course that made no sense to me. A shame really.