The Trailer for A24’s It Comes at Night Came This Morning And It’s a Nerve-Shredding Mesmerizer

In his debut film Krisha, Trey Edward Shults imbued a family gathering with the feel of a nightmare, an aesthetic that signaled the film’s full-tilt plunge into the titular heroine’s shattered psyche. From the looks of the new teaser for his sophomore feature It Comes At Night, Shults has fully submerged himself in the horror genre. And if the nerve-shredding virtuosity of the trailer reflects the actual film in any way, then we’re in for a real treat when the movie hits theaters at the end of the summer.

The central mystery of the trailer is the same one that surrounds the film’s title: what is the “it”? We are given snatches of information, via both cryptic voiceover and uncontextualized images, that function as hints. Mention of a sickness and the significance of ”[going] outside.” Reference to a door that everyone expected to be closed. Shots of a guy in a gas mask, and of a cabin presumably in the middle of the woods. From the looks of the trailer, it seems that It Comes At Night will be a small-scale, post-apocalyptic survival story (the film doesn’t yet have an official synopsis), but the “it” of the title is still unknown. What we do know is that the enigma of the vague “it” served It Follows well, and the premise of an unknown, nocturnal danger lurking beyond the flimsy walls of a shack have echoes of The Witch. Put another way, Shults’ film looks like it has some impressive genre DNA, while the filmmaker’s obvious knack for visual and aural storytelling in Krisha makes us hopeful that It Comes At Night won’t be a mere retread, either.

It Comes At Night stars Joel Edgerton, Riley Keough, Christopher Abbott and Carmen Ejogo. Check out the masterful trailer above, and stay tuned for more news about the film in the months leading up to its Aug. 25 release.