Vast of Night

Small town New Mexico, sometime in the 1950s and it's the night of the High School basketball game, a highlight of the town calendar. With almost everybody at the game, teenage friends Fay and Everett are left in charge of the telephone exchange and radio station respectively. Nobody much is expected to be making calls or listening the radio.

Fay finds herself with a series of malfunctions in the telephone system and a worrying call from somebody perhaps in danger but it cuts off. Almost simultaneously a strange repeated noise briefly blots out the radio broadcast. Everrett decides to replay the sound out on the radio to see if anybody recognises it.

No good will come of this

This mixes 50s reds under the bed paranoia with early UFO mythology and some lovely period touches. It's all chunky reel to reel tape recorders, sparse street lighting and small town connectedness where the telephone operator is always there in lieu of the automatic global connectivity we have now.

The first section is conducted as a series of phone calls and radio broadcasts and sometimes fades completely to black yet remains compelling. As our protagonists get deeper in they abandon their posts and go investigating.

This is a really strong but simple production with no crash bang wallop, it's very personal. You can see where it's going but with an unusual setting and great performances that doesn't matter.

There are some slightly gimmicky parts like long tracking shots that travel across town and occasionally it pulls back so you're viewing events as if you're watching a vintage TV that feel like they were visually experimenting without a real aim in mind.

Nonetheless, highly recommended 8/10 for a little something different.