The Vast of Night Movie Storyline. In 1950s Cayuga, New Mexico, teenage disc jockey Everett helps prepare for a high school basketball game. He and his friend Fay test out her new tape recorder, and Everett walks her to her job as a switchboard operator before starting his own night shift at the radio station.
Fay listens to Everett’s show, which is interrupted by a mysterious audio signal. Fielding calls about a strange wind-like phenomenon from the sky, she hears the same signal over the phone line; her connections drop when she calls friends about the signal. Fay calls Everett, who asks his listeners for information about the signal, which he broadcasts on the air.
A man named Billy calls, and Everett broadcasts him live. Billy explains that he served in the military and was flown to a highly secretive location in the desert. Warned that telling anyone about the classified project would “endanger America”, he and the other personnel built a large underground bunker to house an enormous unknown object.
Flying away from the facility, he heard the same unexplained signal on the plane’s radio. Billy developed a lung condition that he believes was caused by his time in the desert and learned of other instances of the military burying similar cargo in secret locations, where the same signal was heard. He explains that the sound appears to be a communication signal, sometimes transmitted higher than any man-made object could fly.
The call is briefly disconnected, but Billy calls back and reveals that he and the other personnel chosen for these projects were all black or Mexican, to ensure they were less likely to be believed by the public. A friend of his managed to record the signal and sent copies to Billy and others who worked on the projects; one tape was given to a member of the Air Force in Cayuga, now deceased.
Fay realizes that his tapes were given to the local library and steals them. Billy is disconnected, and Everett and Fay find the recording of the signal and broadcast it, but the radio station’s power is knocked out. They race to the switchboard office, where Fay receives numerous reports of “something in the sky”, and they meet Gerald and Bertsie, who have been driving in pursuit of the same unidentified flying object. An elderly woman named Mabel calls and offers to provide more information about the signal.
Everett and Fay go to Mabel’s home, where they find her reciting a message in an unknown language. With Everett recording their conversation, Mabel claims that the phenomena seen across town are spaceships, piloted by aliens who use their message to hypnotize and abduct humans. She believes the aliens will target isolated people while most of the town is at the basketball game and suspects the aliens are responsible for sowing conflict in humanity, from alcoholism to war.
Mabel asks to be taken to the alien ship to reunite with her son, who was abducted years ago. Unconvinced, Everett leaves with Fay, who collects her baby sister Maddie, and they are picked up by Gerald and Bertsie. Everett plays his recording of Mabel speaking the alien message; it sends Gerald and Bertsie into a trance, nearly causing them to crash. After the eerie incident, Everett and Fay panic and flee with Maddie into the woods.
The Vast of Night is a 2019 American science fiction mystery film directed by Andrew Patterson, and starring Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz. The film is co-produced and written by Patterson (under the pseudonym James Montague) and Craig W. Sanger. Loosely based on the Kecksburg UFO incident and Foss Lake disappearances,[b] the film is set in 1950s New Mexico, where Fay Crocker (McCormick), a young switchboard operator and Everett Sloan (Horowitz), a radio disc jockey discover a mysterious audio frequency that could be extraterrestrial in origin.
The Vast of Night premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2019. Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film and released it on May 29, 2020, including drive-in theaters in the United States and via video-on-demand on Amazon Prime Video. The film received positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised the direction, cinematography, historical authenticity and the performances of McCormick and Horowitz. At the 1st Critics’ Choice Super Awards in 2021, the film received three nominations, as well as several other accolades.
The Vast of Night (2020)
Directed by: Andrew Patterson
Starring: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, Bruce Davis, Greg Peyton, Mark Banik, Lynn Blackburn, Ingrid Fease, Brandon Stewart, Cheyenne Barton, Mallorie Rodak
Screenplay by: James Montague[a], Craig W. Sanger
Production Design by: Adam Dietrich
Cinematography by: M. I. Littin-Menz
Film Editing by: Junius Tully
Costume Design by: Jamie Reed
Art Direction by: Jonathan Rudak
Music by: Erick Alexander, Jared Bulmer
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language.
Distributed by: Amazon Studios
Release Date: January 26, 2019 (Slamdance), May 29, 2020 (United States)
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