Amazon Original Sci-Fi ‘The Vast Of Night’ is a Love Letter to The Twilight Zone

The Vast of Night (2019) Story Analysis

The Vast of Night (2019) was a surprise for me when I flipped it on my Amazon account. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect and frankly, I had done little to no research. I selfishly wanted it to grab and pull me in, otherwise, I wasn't going to spend time on it.

Its opening shot sold me. I felt myself sit up and stare at the screen as the first shot and opening line told me everything I needed to know.

I WAS GOING TO LOVE THIS FILM.

The Vast of Night's Intro Scene

A simple guitar riff with a radio muted song is playing before we are placed in a mustard yellow living room with a 1950's round television tube projecting a black and white television show introduction.

A monologue begins to read aloud over images that fade in and over the 1950s television.

The voice speaking feels like Rod Serling.

"You are entering a realm between clandestine and forgotten, a slipstream caught between channels, the secret museum of mankind, the private library of shadows, all taking place on a stage forged from mystery and found only on a frequency caught between logic and myth. You are entering Paradox Theater. Tonight's episode, the Vast of Night."

I smiled big.

The Twilight Zone series is a show I devoured as a kid. As a 90's Saturday morning cartoon kid, I also enjoyed Nick at Nite on the Nickelodeon Channel. It's how I got exposure to classics like I Dream of Genie, Dennis the Menace, I Love Lucy, The Partridge Family, Happy Days, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched... Etc.

So when the Sci Fi Channel (now "Syfy") began to dole out reruns of Rod Serlings Twilight Zone, especially back to back to back episodes on new years eve... Every episode gripped me.

This show aesthetically looked like the happy-go-lucky shows that Nick at Nite broadcasted, but the stories were dark. I'd lay awake in bed rethinking them and mulling over their story themes especially when they ended in uncertain death. It was a lot to process when I was eight.

It was creepy, had twists to the stories. Whenever I watched a new Twilight Zone episode for the first time, I never knew how things would end up. This show was the genesis to explore the seeds of passion I'd have later in life for the macabre mixed with suspense.

Needless to say, the show was a critical success in its day. Winning an Emmy in 1960.

The Vast of Night began to embody all of those feelings I had when watching The Twilight Zone when I was eight.

The 1960s television then begins to display some establishing shots. These shots carry that same aesthetic still-camera tripod-look that is very reminiscent of 1960s television cinematography.

Frankly, too simple for modern audiences' taste. I began to wonder how they'd keep this up. Audience members like me, I'm familiar with static shots, black and white light balancing compositions, and dry line delivery. BUT... I don't know many other millennials who would be interested in this stylistic choice for very long.

The camera movement into the television is so subtle you don't notice that the television screen has engulfed the width of the full screen, and the black and white treatment eases into a full-color scheme.

It relaxes the camera into dolly and track shots, giving the lense we are looking through a modern eye and helping modern audiences emotionally ease into the set space we are now a participant in.

It's truly beautifully and skillfully done, to a point where you're not really supposed to notice.

As color begins to bloom over, the sound mixing is careful to introduce every day ticks and atmosphere. Tires rolling on dirt, chatter from a crowd gathering for the big town basketball game. Everything becomes more "real." And the film wastes no time in launching into dialogue.

Dialogue is King in the Vast of Night

I cannot express how much love I ended up having for the written dialogue of this movie. All the characters feel like honest "small towners" who all grew with one another and know one another.

Each character who is given a few lines feels like a person. A person with lives and backstories and don't just exist to serve the main characters. If one could write an RPG (role-playing game) for this town, you could walk up to anyone and start talking to them with a full conversation.

Really well-written dialogue is definitely a challenge to do in film. Conveying information between the lines, while making all information given feel earned and natural. One of my favorite Youtube Channels discusses the genius behind the film The Social Network (2010).

The video discusses how quick-witted conversation uses flash to distract the audience, that the audience doesn't notice when the substance is hitting them. Aaron Sorkin (writer of The Social Network, 2010), is known for using non-linear storytelling to use this function to his style of impact.

However, I would make the parallel of The Vast of Night (2019), to how Sorkin uses overlapping dialogue. Almost a cadence of two conversations happening at the same time with two people.

The Characters

The Vast of Night mainly follows two characters Fay and Everett. The chemistry of these two actors is amazing. They were able to take the sentiment of two small-town kids who grew up with one another.

Everyone around them assumes because of their friendship it must bloom into a romance, but Fay and Everett never give off the impression they're romantically interested in one another. In fact, you know they've got each others back as friends, but they've grown up with one another since being kids. It really doesn't occur to them to be romantic.

The HUGE amount of characters manufactured for this town is demonstrated again through the dialogue. It occurred to me that from the moment we meet Everett, until Everett and Fay leave the high school basketball court, they either mention or greet literally 20 characters who are all part of their universe of this small town.

This is an absurd amount of information to give an audience, and yet it completely works. We'll also never meet a tenth of these characters in the course of the film. But what it's meant to demonstrate the intimacy that each of the characters carries in living in a small town together.

Want to know how long that section of dialogue was to mention 20 characters? Three minutes and fifteen seconds. **Low Whistle**. And not a single name doesn't feel unnaturally brought up.

This shows interconnection, a sense of community and belonging which would be a drastic departure from the ending scene.

This trend of talking about characters around them in town continues in other bouts of conversation between Fay and Everett. Eventually, there is a point where Fay and Everett are so enamored with finding the truth of the strange noise, that there's a realization of how isolated you can be in a small town if you're not part of their group mentality.

The Characters You Can't See

There are a small number of characters who perpetuate the story forward, and we'll never see their faces. From those who called into the station to give their accounts of government interaction during strange interruptions that are similar to this very night.

A pulsating sound coming through the radio is also revealed to be a character in its own right as a menacing force they are trying to get to the bottom of.

My favorite monologue is about a woman who is the "town-crazy" talking about her son. He, as a character, in his interactions with the aliens above.

I actually greatly love and appreciate the fact the film never once uses the word "Alien" "Extraterrestrial" or "Supernatural" in any respect. It's implied but never spelled out.

This gives breadth to the idea that an audience doesn't need anything spelled out. That they are to be part of the discovery process with the main characters.

Should You Watch The Vast Of Night?

YES. Short and simple.

This is an amazing film, and after watching it a second time I was able to catch so much more of the dialogue. There was a moment as Fay and Everett were walking down the street and Fay finally opens up about subjects that fascinate her regarding science and technology.

As she's talking about electric self-driving cars she says she's got a particular point to tell Everett, then she pauses and says "actually two things." As small as this is, it shows amazing writing as the writer knows what two things Fay wants to tell Everett, but allows her character to think through her thought as though she's engaging the conversation like she is creating the conversation on the spot.

It's small, but it's details like that sprinkled all over this film to make the characters and conversations feel authentic.