“The Vast of Night” has an old school touch that thrills and captivates A classic scifi story style presented in a delightfully modern way

Set in a small town in 1950s New Mexico, The Vast of Night tells the story of an unbelievable mystery that has rippled through the decades with implications that it will continue into the future, with no proof or answers left at this stage for people to follow up on or investigate further.

What begins as a fun evening where most of the town gathers at the high school for a highly anticipated basketball game against a rival town’s school turns into a mystery: a series of unexplained events related to a strange sound heard through phone lines and radios, and to an unknown object seen in the skies around town. The sound is first noted by Fay, the town’s young switchboard night operator, and later reported on by her friend Everett, a night-time DJ for the local radio station.

Everett’s curiosity leads him to play the sound live on the air, asking for help from his listeners to identify it, and call in if they know anything about it. When someone does call in, an old man who identifies himself as Billy, and he begins to tell the story, live on air, about his time in the military and his multiple encounters with that sound. Billy’s story captivates and terrifies, but his unburdening, and the reasons for it, leads to Faye and Everett talking with Mabel, an elderly woman who’s lived in the town since she was a child, and she has her own secrets about the strange sights and sounds that have come to Cayuga this night.

The rest of the night plays out in somewhat predictable but fast-paced ways, and there truly is not a moment where Fay or Everett can take a breath and think a little more about what they’ve seen and heard, and with all of the town’s community leaders and voices of authority tucked away at the basketball game focuses on how alone they are, and how sure but unsure they are about what’s going on that they don’t want to disturb everyone else’s enjoyment of the game.

Even though the story begins with being framed as one episode in a serialized science fiction drama, so many period habits and pastimes are seen or mentioned in passing, serving up multiple levels of “here and now” and adding to the immersive nature of the story. The moments needed for taking smoke breaks, the habits of reusing tapes in order to save money (because who would ever want to go back and listen to old games and old news reports?), the innocence of leaving doors unlocked, or leaving keys underneath flower pots (even with the looming fear of invasion by communist armies), all these moments set up a placid normalcy that will be shaken by the discovery of this mysterious sound and the resulting investigation.

The darkness of the night, without a lot of background light that you might see in a larger, more populated area, adds to the closed-in feel that surrounds even the wide open spaces in between the close shots of longer conversations. The sound design and the music are delightful amplifiers of what the characters are feeling in various moments, well worth noting.

Having this story unfold in one single night, almost in real time, amplifies the tension our main characters are feeling as the dive deeper into a mystery that is beyond their small town lives and experiences. Even though they express how far away they want to get from Cayuga NM, away to bigger cities and bigger lives, the limits of what they know and are prepared to consider believing are tested, and their moments of fear and terror come across as painfully real.

The radio drama style of this story, with its juxtaposed long active, moving shots and the long still conversational shots, is an almost perfect setup for this story and the unseen parts that are so important to the narrative. And even though we see what Fay and Everett see after their long pursuit around town to catch up with what others have reported seeing, we are left not knowing their fate, and not knowing if the townspeople will ever be able to find any answers to what we all know are the coming questions.

This movie is a treat for any fan of old school science fiction, including the styles of the old and modern radio dramas, and entirely captivating when watched in complete darkness.

“You are entering a realm between clandestine and forgotten.” So begins the story of one fateful night in 1950s New Mexico. Photographed in soft, inky-dark tones and shot in nearly real time, THE VAST OF NIGHT follows young, winsome switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and charismatic radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) as they discover a strange audio frequency that could change their small town and the future forever.

Starring: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, and Bruce Davis
Directed by: Andrew Patterson
Written by: James Montague and Craig W. Sanger