It Comes at Night / YMMV

Alternate Character Interpretation:
- How trustworthy is Will and his family? Is Will actually ill-intentioned, or is his suspicious behavior merely interpreted badly because of Paul’s paranoia? Paul is incredibly cautious of him the entire film, but Will never actually DOES anything to warrant this mistrust, at least onscreen, and betraying Paul’s family would be antithetical to his own family’s survival once they’re all living together. While he misspeaks by saying he had a brother when he claims to have meant a brother-in-law, and this is implied to be a lie, it’s hardly a consequential lie because the man in question is dead anyways, and Will has been completely honest about his wife and kid needing help. Even in the finale, when Will aims a gun at Paul and demands food and water to travel with, he only demands the portion Paul and him made a deal on, and that’s ignoring that Paul came to his bedroom door with a gun first with the intention to kill them! At that point, everything Will does is self defense or done to protect his family, whom Paul and Sarah have essentially taken hostage. How guilty Will is also depends on whether you interpret Andrew to be sick or not, since it alters just how paranoid Sarah and Paul became.
- Was Andrew even actually sick? While Kim tells him to cover his eyes from Paul, presumably to hide symptoms of the illness, it could also be that she didn’t want Andrew to see Paul and Will aiming guns at each other. In some quick shots, Andrew’s hands are free of warts and blisters, which are another telltale sign of the illness.
Common Knowledge: Nothing ever comes at night...except for Will trying to break into the house in the first act, and Stanley the dog that eventually returns after running away — sick.
Critical Dissonance: The film was adored by critics, but largely rejected by general moviegoers. The film is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 86%, whereas the audience score is 43%. The film also managed to earn a somewhat rare "D" rating from Cinemascore. It's believed that a good portion of the negative response came from the marketing selling a different kind of horror movie than it actually was — that, and its incredibly bleak ending.
Epileptic Trees: A literal case: many are convinced that the trees had something to do with the events of the film given that Stanley disappears in them and Travis and Andrew separately draw rather creepy pictures of them.
Memetic Mutation: “If it comes at night, do refunds come in the morning?”^Explanation
Moral Event Horizon: Paul and Sarah cross it toward the end when they kill Will and his entire family under the suspicion they could be infected. Will might have been a justified killing since he attacked first, but there was no excuse for killing Kim and Andrew - especially when it ends up being all for nothing anyway.
Nightmare Fuel: The Nothing Is Scarier aspects of most of the film count; for instance, it's never revealed if there are any survivors aside from the main cast, which makes the ending incredibly bleak. There's also the question of what Stanley was barking at and whether or not it had something to do with the plague.
Tear Jerker: The sequence in which the outsider family is killed not even several minutes apart from one another. Will gets shot in the back, and Kim tries to flee with Andrew in tow before Paul shoots and kills Andrew as he's still in her mother's arms. Her agonized reaction is the centerpiece of the scene; while it starts tense and fast-paced, it grinds to a complete halt to let her wails of grief sink in, and they are absolutely devastating to listen to. She then screams at Paul to kill her, and he reluctantly obliges, after which you can practically feel the sense of loss in the air.
Vindicated by Cable: The film underperformed in the box office, but entered the TV reruns cycle around the time COVID-19 Pandemic started, quickly gaining renewed interest and momentum.

YMMV / It Comes at Night

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