It Comes at Night Box Office Prediction

A24 Studios will try and scare up some business next weekend with the release of psychological horror thriller It Comes at Night. From director Trey Edward Shults, it stars Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, and Christopher Abbott. Originally scheduled to open in August, it was pushed up after receiving some critical acclaim on the film festival circuit (it’s at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes right now).

Horror flicks are notoriously tough to predict and it’s a genre where reviews don’t matter much. We have seen lauded titles such as You’re Next fail to break through with mainstream audiences and that could hold true here. On the other hand, Get Out from just this year is one of the best reviewed genre titles in recent memory and it made a killing. That said, Get Out seemed to have a lot more buzz going for it.

There’s also the matter of The Mummy opening against it and it could compete for some of the same crowd. I’ll predict It Comes at Night opens just under double digits as it hopes to build upon solid word of mouth or achieve cult status afterwards.

It Comes at Night opening weekend prediction: $9.5 million

For my The Mummy prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2017/06/01/the-mummy-box-office-prediction/

For my Megan Leavey prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2017/06/05/megan-leavey-box-office-prediction/

You’re Next Movie Review

A dysfunctional upper class family consisting of mom and dad, their four adult children, and their children’s significant others get together for the first time in quite a while in You’re Next. As if that weren’t terrifying enough, what follows is them being trapped in the well-worn clichés of a home invasion horror flick. The central premise of Adam Wingard’s picture is that the gory bloodshed is only slightly scarier than the character’s personality flaws and sibling rivalries.

Caught in the middle of all the family drama is Erin (Sharni Vinson), who’s accompanying her boyfriend (A.J. Bowen) to his parents (Rob Moran and Barbara Crampton) vacation home for the weekend. It turns out Erin will be our film’s strong heroine presence and that she knows a lot more about how to deal with the unwelcome guests than anyone on else on site. Those invaders come in the form of murderers with cool looking animal masks who’ve thought out their crime well (piano wire is put to good use).

You’re Next follows in the tradition of Scream and The Cabin in the Woods in that it satirizes the genre while celebrating its conventions. Director Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett have a lot of fun playing with those conventions. It may not reach the ironic heights of the aforementioned pictures, but it often comes darn close. The central twists aren’t particularly surprising and there are times when Next becomes a little repetitive.

Yet it’s bloody heart is in the right place. The 80s sounding soundtrack is a trip. The pic surprisingly works more as a gore infested comedy than traditional horror flick. You’re Next‘s family argument starts at the dinner table and doesn’t stop just because a group of bow and arrow shooting, knife wielding terrorizers decide the crash the occasion. For enthusiasts of the genre, there’s a lot to admire here and there’s fun to be had.

*** (out of four)