Exciting and familiar visual tonic of a movie

 THE VAST OF NIGHT (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I have seen my share of films about aliens in the sky in small, remote towns and I never tire of seeing them. There is something about the remoteness of a small town, a small community, that feels germane to the oft-told concept of otherworldly visitors. "The Vast of Night" works wonders with imagination and skillful direction and it is a crackerjack story that could have lead anywhere, other than where it leads. Maybe I was hoping for some other entity, maybe something more mysterious and ancient and its lead up to an alien mothership just made me feel a tad cheated. 

Set in the fictional town of Cayuga, New Mexico during the late 1950's era, we are introduced to a quick-witted radio DJ for WOTW station, Everett (Jake Horowitz), and a loquacious and excited 16-year-old switchboard operator, Fay Crocker (Sierra McCormick). They both walk to their jobs from the school gym late at night, discussing his tape recorder and she talks it up with reference to magazine stories of future technologies like having a phone with a video signal! Once they start their work for the night, Fay starts receiving a call with an ominous, clickety tone. No one knows what it is and as she calls various people in the community, they have no idea (other than one nervous caller) and then they are cut off. When Fay reaches out to Everett, he is nonplussed to learn that his news broadcast was cut off by this unknown signal. Later, Fay gets a call from a man who is aware what that signal is. An interview takes place as this mysterious man's call is played live on the air. 

A striking, often mesmerizing feature debut by director Andrew Patterson, "The Vast of Night" is sort of a grainy, low-key, dimly lit movie that somebody found in their VHS collection and hadn't played it in years. In that sense, there is something foreboding about the whole movie as it is wrapped in a deluge of paranoia and wonder. Both Horowitz, who exhibits a beatnik cool factor about himself, and McCormick's Fay stand out and their banter and tech-trivia conversations are a joy to listen to. Yet, despite the expected factor that it's all about aliens (as I said, I am a fan of those stories), I was still hoping for something more, something more cataclysmic that did not revolve around the typical otherworldly presence. "The Vast of Night" has three or four standout sequences that have everything to do with an active mobile camera in endless tracking shots such as roaming around town at a breakneck speed, or when a shot is held for 10 minutes as it focuses on Fay switching calls trying to decipher that odd sound, or when Everett and Fay walk in an early opening sequence. Such tell-tale, tantalizing moments seem to lead to an ending that could have been a supernova of thrills and surprises. We see an alien mothership and it is quite a sight...but not an unfamiliar one. Still, such a gripe doesn't take away from its overall hook on me. "The Vast of Night" is often quite a visual tonic of a movie and I'll take it over the middling repetitions of "Midnight Special."