At a Chicago screening of the new post-apocalyptic horror film It Comes At Night, writer-director Trey Edward Shults revealed the film’s inspirations. Like his debut movie, 2015’s Krisha, It Comes At Night is a harrowing drama based on a crisis in Shults’ family: “It comes from my dad’s death,” Shults says. “I had a messy relationship with my dad… He battled addiction for a long time, I cut off our relationship, and after 10 years, I saw him on his deathbed, with pancreatic cancer, and he was so full of regret for the life he led. And I was just trying to help him find some peace. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. I’ve never been that close to death.”
It Comes At Night isn’t openly about cancer, the way Krisha was...