MovieChat Forums > The Vast of Night (2020) Discussion > What happens when you try to stretch out...

What happens when you try to stretch out a 60 minute short

posted 2 years ago by mineofilms (37)
1 reply | jump to latest

Was ok. It's basically a very stretched-out episode of some generic anthology sci-fi/horror series like a modern-day "Outer Limits" or "Twilight Zone." The tone was pretty good but there is a lot of things wrong with this movie to give it a good review. It's worth a watch but have real small expectations because NOTHING HAPPENS and that is all you get from this. Unfulfilled expectations which were established by a solid trailer.

There are some decent things in it. Choices made with how to film this/that -that made the movie stand out, expo and dialog, but how it comes together absolutely doesn't work for me. Like I said above. It feels like this was supposed to be 60 minutes for an anthology show but got scrapped and was stretched out to make a feature. This doesn't feel like a feature film or even made for cable.

The only thing that is missing are those plugin special effects that you would see in an Asylum production. If you have prime this is worth the freebee but I wouldn't pay to see this, not even $3.99. Sorry to the people who loved it. There are some decent stuff in it but this movie really needs a good script to draw from. What we got was a 60 minute short film stretched out to be an hour and 40 minutes of confusion. 👽🤣🤷‍♂️🗑️

[–] SickSpazmoid (843) 7 months ago

Many of those recent low-budget sci-fi movies do play out like overly extended "Outer Limits" episodes and I'm not a fan of that. However, I can't put "The Vast of Night" in the same category, because:

1. It has good production values and it is not the typical "mom and pop" thing with home video flavor.
2. It is self-aware of being like an episode from an old sci-fi TV show.
3. The excellent writing did not make it feel forcibly extended to 90 minutes.

But I can agree that if one wishes, it can be rewritten as a 50 minutes episode without losing much. And I'm not sure that film is the best media for this story, it looks like more suitable for a podcast or radio or theatre, because visuals don't add anything (though the long shots were cool) and the accent is on the dialogue. The only part in the script I didn't like is the switch-board operator leaving her post in state of emergency. Don't know why the writer wanted to keep the two main characters together.

Kudos to the actress Sierra McCormick. I really thought she is a teen girl.