'It Comes At Night' Trailer: One Of The Summer's Creepiest Movies Gets A Misleading Preview

I was able to see director Trey Edward Shults' It Comes At Night a few weeks ago and I agree with our own Alex Riviello, who reviewed it from the world premiere at the Overlook Film Festival: it's a really good movie. It is also not the movie being presented in this new preview, which could be a problem for some audiences.

So watch the new It Comes at Night trailer below, but understand that the movie arriving in theaters next week isn't the movie being advertised.

Set in a vague and never fully explained post-apocalypse, the film follows a family living in a remote house in the middle of the woods. They have made this whole "end of civilization" thing work for them – they have water, food, guns, a routine, and a relative sense of safety. And then other people show up. And things don't go well for anyone. And according to this trailer, jump scares and horror movie craziness ensues. Maybe a monster or two rears its ugly head.

Not quite. It Comes at Night has more in common with Shults' previous film, the harrowing domestic drama Krisha, than it does with your average wide-release horror movie. There are no real scares to be found – just a continuous state of dread. Like last year's masterful The Witch, this is a movie more interested in creating an atmosphere and letting you stew in it rather than providing easy answers or exciting moments. It is maddening by design and a certain breed of genre enthusiast is going to love it. I know I did. But I do believe that this is a case where expectations need to be reset.

We're planning to write more about It Comes at Night in the weeks ahead. I'll have a larger post about the film itself that will also grapple with the whole "expectations versus reality" aspect of how it's being marketed. I'll publish my interview with Shults, the kind of guy who mentions Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter and the the video game The Last of Us as influences, next week. And because we can't get it out of our heads, Alex and I are planning a post where we can talk this movie over and come to grips with it.

If you're an adventurous movie watcher, someone ready and willing to embrace arthouse horror that doesn't feel the need to entertain as much as it feels the need to provide an experience, It Comes at Night is a must-see. It hits theaters on June 9, 2017.