The Vast of Night (2021)

Loosely based on the Kecksburg UFO incident and Foss Lake disappearances, The Vast Of The Night plays out more or less in real time. Set over one night in the 1950’s, we follow switchboard operator Fay and radio DJ Jake as they investigate bizarre sounds coming over their sets as they attempt to take phone calls. Is it communist Russia about to invade US airspace? Or is it altogether something more sinister? Made for peanuts ($700,000) Andrew Patterson’s only credited work in film thus far is a decent stab at capturing the unknown. The drawn out sequences in which we are simply presented with two characters having a lengthy discussion work very well at building suspense and belief, and bearing in mind the film is only ninety minutes long, that’s mainly what the film is made up of. At times it feels a tad like a dramatised documentary, or even a stage play, but for the most part The Vast Of Night holds your attention fairly well, and when you consider the straight to DVD/Netflix nonsense of so many ‘alien’ films, that’s no mean feat. Patterson also inter-cuts grainy footage of the film inside old TV sets before moving in on them to reveal the picture as it is. It works effectively in setting down new chapters of the film, and although the ending is somewhat of a pander to fans of the unexplained, The Vast Of Night is an impressive calling card for Patterson. 7.0/10