THE VAST OF NIGHT (2019)

Studio:      Amazon Studios
Director:    Andrew Patterson
Writer:      James Montague, Craig W. Sanger
Producer:  Adam Dietrich, Melissa Kirkendall, James Montague
Stars:     Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Bruce Davis, Gail Cronauer

Review Score:

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Summary:

In the 1950s, a young radio DJ and a teenage switchboard operator discover a strange audio signal that could connect to a massive mystery.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In 1950s Texas, young WOTW radio DJ Everett Sloan gets summoned to Cayuga High School to look at a wiring problem as the small town prepares for a big basketball game. Teenage switchboard operator Fay Crocker excitedly shows her new tape recorder to Everett. Everett teaches Fay how to use the recorder by having her humorously interview locals in the parking lot.

Everett walks Fay to her nighttime shift at the switchboard office. Everett then continues to the radio station to broadcast his show.

Fay hears a bizarre sound interrupt Everett’s broadcast. She also receives several strange phone calls, including one from a woman preparing to bunker in her cellar after seeing something frightening in the sky. Fay learns the police are responding to other odd reports as calls continue to suddenly cut out.

Fay plays the unknown noise for Everett. Intrigued by the mystery, Everett broadcasts the sound over the air and asks listeners to call in with information if they can identify it.

A man named Billy calls Everett’s show. Billy explains he used to work on classified assignments when he was in the military. Billy claims he heard the same sound over the radio during what was apparently a UFO recovery operation in a desert. He later developed a terminal lung condition that Billy believes was related to the assignment. Billy adds that he thinks he and other Black and Mexican men were selected for these hidden details because no one would believe them if they spoke out.

Billy goes on to claim that a radar operator told him the strange sound originated from outer space. The radar operator continued investigating independently and concluded something was attempting to communicate before disappearing. The radar operator recorded another signal and sent audiotape copies to Billy and other men who heard it on their recovery missions.

Billy destroyed his tape because he didn’t want to be caught with it. However, another copy was sent to Raymond Buck, a former USAF serviceman who recently died in Cayuga.

Remembering that Raymond’s tapes were donated to the library, Fay rushes there to collect them. Everett picks up Fay in a borrowed car and takes her back to the radio station to listen. When the sound plays on Raymond’s tape, the power goes out.

Everett rushes Fay back to the switchboard. Numerous people call in with frantic claims of seeing something in the sky. Everett and Fay meet Gerald and Bertsie when they go outside to look, and agree to regroup with the other couple later.

An elderly woman named Mabel Blanche calls to say she can explain more of what is going on, but insists on speaking with Everett in person because she is a shut-in. When Everett and Fay arrive at Mabel’s house, they hear her speaking strange words in an unknown language.

Mabel recounts a story about a train whose passengers vanished mysteriously. Everyone assumed Apaches took the people, but a few days later, a disheveled survivor staggered into town in a catatonic state. The survivor muttered in the unknown language while sleeping. She then disappeared overnight.

Mabel met a man named Claude Maynard. They had a son named Hollis out of wedlock. Mabel raised Hollis after Claude died. When Hollis was just ten months old, Mabel heard him muttering the same words that she heard the train survivor speak. Mabel wrote the words down.

When Hollis was four, Mabel found the boy staring outside during a windstorm. Mabel read the words, which caused Hollis to enter a trance. Mabel had a feeling that something outside was attempting to communicate with her son.

Mabel got that feeling again when Hollis was nine. Hollis walked outside and seemingly vanished into the sky because his footprints ended abruptly. No one believed Mabel’s story about her son’s unexplained disappearance.

Although she didn’t recognize the sound that Everett broadcast, Mabel still believes “they” have returned to town and are currently in the sky. Mabel insists “they” play with people’s minds by using some sort of advanced radio.

Mabel asks Everett and Fay to take her to the ship so she can see her son again. Concluding Mabel is crazy, Everett packs up his recording equipment to leave. Mabel extends a paper with the alien words on it and tells Everett to repeat them whenever he encounters anyone that night, but Everett refuses to take it.

Fay remembers her cousin Ethel was babysitting an infant named Maddie. With Ethel missing, Fay collects the baby on her way to retrieve a camera from Gretchen Hankins.

Fay and Everett regroup with Gerald and Bertsie. While the other couple drives them out of town, Everett plays his recording of Mabel speaking the alien language. Gerald and Bertsie enter a trance that nearly causes Gerald to crash.

Fay and Everett flee from the car. In a forest, they find charred trees indicating a UFO burned overhead. They then see a spaceship in a clearing. The UFO ascends into the sky where it enters a massive mothership. Everett holds Fay as the wind intensifies. After the basketball game lets out, Everett and Fay’s footprints are seen on the ground next to the dropped recording equipment where they previously stood.

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Review:

“The Twilight Zone” truly is a dimension of mind. Naturally, Rod Serling narration is the best way to get there fast. Loosely framed as a throwback episode of an imaginary sci-fi series, “The Vast of Night” instantly transports us into its parallel world by slowly zooming into an old timey TV while Serling’s smoky voice booms outward.* Once inside, charismatic characters and creative camerawork combine with deeply intriguing storytelling to ensure viewers remain captive there for the next 90 minutes.

*Incidentally, I don’t know if producers found the most convincing Serling soundalike imaginable or re-appropriated vintage sound clips to say what they needed. Perhaps some combination of audio magic? Regardless, it’s part of the movie’s bottomless bag of tricks for fleshing a fully realized fantasy out of almost every possible detail.

We never need text to tell us where or when we are because Adam Dietrich’s production design and Jonathan Rudak’s art direction provide all of the establishing information necessary. Classic cars in a parking lot, pointed eyeglasses and long skirts on girls, and basketball uniform styles not seen since “Leave It to Beaver” immediately identify Small Town USA in the 1950s.

Initial scenes introduce Everett (Jake Horowitz). He’s a chain-smoking motormouth with a surprising amount of swagger for someone who’s essentially a young adult A/V nerd. It’s just that in this era, being a radio DJ makes Everett a little bit of a local celebrity. Combine that with his knowledgeable confidence and you can see where occasionally snide sparks of sarcasm come from. He’s not quite cocky though. Quick-witted words showcase Everett as a mostly good-natured guy who simply enjoys gently ribbing folksy neighbors.

While helping address a wiring problem at the high school gym prior to the town’s big game, Everett meets up with his good gal pal Fay (Sierra McCormick). She’s eager to show him her new tape recorder since such hot technology is the new rage and Everett can teach her how to use it. That’s exactly what he does as they stroll around in a series of smooth tracking shots. As they amusingly “interview” families and friends arriving for the game, we see Fay for the nervously excitable and infectiously affable teenager she is. She’s only a little naïve, but not at all undereducated for her age. She’s merely colored by the mid-20th century optimism of someone hopeful for a wondrous future.

Horowitz’s yin to McCormick’s yang creates chemistry that only hints at a minor crush. Everett and Fay seem more like a big brother and kid sister who are platonically affectionate toward one another than potential sweethearts. Not getting sidetracked with romance lets their relationship build a better battery based on mutual respect and genuine friendship that moves the film more interestingly than a pining love arc would anyway.

I’d understand if shorter attention spans tuned down to lower frequencies during this lengthy opening. Nonstop chatter spits up a lot of names and ultimately inessential walla-walla that goes on for umpteen minutes as Everett and Fay weave their way past a lot of people. It takes a moment to realize nearly none of what we hear here will bear much weight on the primary plot’s direction.

What “The Vast of Night” actually does with this sequence is it gives a pulse to an atmosphere that extends beyond the edges of each set. Dozens of extras constantly move around in the foreground and background. The camera keeps moving too, sometimes taking inventive routes like passing through car windows to keep imagery fluid while conversation dominates development of the two main personalities.

Smallish indies rarely put up this kind of effort to depict such vibrant bustle. “The Vast of Night’s” staging smartly opens up the setting with long takes that allow the actors to melt into the environment while sinking deeper into their roles. It’s part of a strategy that gets viewers to comfortably stretch out before confining them to upcoming locations where closely claustrophobic walls accent a growing feeling of paranoia.

Everett eventually goes to the radio station to broadcast his show while Fay tends to her nighttime shift as a switchboard operator. Not long after hearing an unidentifiable noise interfere with Everett’s voice, Fay receives a call that sparks alarm about something strange in the sky before cutting out.

Pursing her brow with a “hmmm,” Fay plays the sound for Everett. Everett doesn’t know what it is either, so he broadcasts the warble over the air and asks listeners to call in with information if they can identify it. Someone can and does, which becomes the first breadcrumb on a cryptic trail toward unraveling a massive mystery.

As excellent as Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz are, and they are always endearing whether they’re paired together or performing solo, special recognition goes to Bruce Davis as Billy, the caller who reveals the first clue. Davis only speaks and is never seen, but his voice acting is top notch terrific. He genuinely sounds like a haunted man recounting a troubling event from his past with credible, disquieting calmness, not like a guy in a booth reading from prepared papers.

Organic acting is a quality shared across the core cast, which also includes Gail Cronauer as elderly shut-in Mabel, whose personal story arguably trumps Billy’s. Each performer makes careful choices about how to chew on plentiful words written by co-screenwriters James Montague and Craig W. Sanger. They’re all clearly well rehearsed and pointedly directed by newcomer Andrew Patterson to read like down-to-earth people.

Several shots go on for multiple minutes where all we see is Everett’s face as he listens to Billy’s tale. Sometimes the screen simply darkens to black as Billy continues. That might sound like it could be boring, but it isn’t. Something about not seeing someone speaking opens our mind’s eye to color in the images that Billy, and later Mabel, describe so convincingly.

“The Vast of Night” doesn’t stay cloistered in these dark cubes. The story opens up again when Everett and Fay, armed with unnerving information, venture back outside to confront their growing fears firsthand. Unsurprisingly, the film uses economic effects with technical skills that complement how cleverly it offloads what it can’t illustrate to the audience’s mesmerized imaginations.

“The Vast of Night” starts out cute, gets quirky, then settles into creepiness as it strokes touchstones of Art Bell-inspired audio conspiracies and prime X-Files storylines. Eyes anxious for more visual thrills might droop due to deliberate pacing. Meanwhile, those who eagerly engage will take a trip back to a simpler time of burger joints and roller skates upended by horror born in the mind.

Rod Serling would appreciate “The Vast of Night’s” suspenseful smolder dripping down an Americana backdrop. More than likely, you’ll enjoy it too.

Review Score: 85

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