A Thief in the Night (1972)
A Thief in the Night is an American thriller movie that came out in 1972.
This is the movie that scared the actual shit out of me as a child but here's the real kicker: it's a christian movie. As an adult, I no longer consider myself a christian but as an 8 year old I was scared to call myself anything other than that. A bit confusing for a so called christian to like movies like Hellraiser and Nightmare on Elm Street huh? I'll elaborate further down but in the meantime, let's revisit this fuckery.
❗❗SPOILERS❗❗ SPOILERS ❗❗ SPOILERS ❗❗
This is more of a recap rather than review. If you want a review well here's a review: It's a disturbing movie to brainwash people into converting to christianity. Wack.
A Thief in the Night starts off with a woman named Patty who has awakened to a blaring radio exclaiming that the rapture has occurred. She goes to try to find her husband but he's disappeared with his razor thingy still buzzing much to her great discontent. Why oh why did Patty get left behind the rapture? She then has a retrospective of the events just shortly before...
These three women actually represent the christians' view of the different class of people that will be affected from the impending rapture. One believes Jesus died for our sins and is the perfect answer to our salvation. Another represents atheists/agnostics that reject christ. Lastly, Patty represents the pseudo christian. She's just vibin' enjoying earthly pleasures but thinks attending church and randomly reading scripture is good enough. Take a wild guess to see who's who...
We are then shown variations of other people becoming born again christians. Such as Patty's husband getting having a close call with death by snek but makes a miraculous recovery that heavily implied because the pure christian friend prayed for it (or maybe the bite was never fatal to begin with???) So he feels a calling to become "saved". Another instance is where a young girl comes home to an unattended boiling pot and she freaks the fuck out thinking the rapture already occurred. It was a false alarm but this persuades her to convert and says a prayer to become "saved" to avert her fear from becoming a reality.
Meanwhile Patty and her husband talk to a pastor. While her husband is ready to accept christ into his heart, Patty contends that her just being a chill christian is good enough and refuses to be saved. So Patty's husband decides to go home and shave.
And BAM! Rapture.
After Patty's retrospect, she now is living in this new world where it's running amok. There's now a world wide bullletin that strongly urges everyone to submit their global allegiance and get this dandy ass mark right here:
Patty steadily refuses. Meanwhile these UNITE soldiers almost look like Nazi soldiers with a red arm band. UNITE come knocking on her door like scary mobsters.
I believe this was one of the most disturbing moments for me personally where she flees into her old church and finds to her discontent that her pastor also got left behind. He's in this state of immense depression and guilt that this whole time he was preaching the wrong theology thus, inadvertently having his church goers believing a false narrative that led to certain death by being left behind.
"How many? How many have I mislead that got left behind because of me?"
They both get captured by UNITE. Patty is in a holding cell while a staff member tries to convince her to get the mark. Pastor got it and he's never been happier. She gets escorted outside where she sees the contrary. Pastor is shot dead. She breaks free and goes on the run.
The movie spends a lot more than necessary documenting her fleeing from UNITE. She eventually finds her friend and boyfriend from earlier in the movie but it turns out they are working with UNITE. She's now at the dam where she ultimately falls to her death.
Yoooooooo. She wakes up. This was all a dreeeeeam.
Sike! She springs awake from her nightmare to her alarm BUT WAIT Rapture really has indeed occurred!! This is how the movie ends with her coming to the harsh reality that the worst nightmare she could possibly imagine is indeed happening in front of her eyes. Thus, concluding this movie. However, not without this lovely message.
Imagine being a little impressionable kid and then watching this movie?? The movie quality of the 1970s absolutely exaggerated that horror quality in this film for sure. Has the thriller soundtrack in the background like omg it was nuts. The opening song was purposely eerie and it still gives me the creeps to this day. As an adult, this film is not nearly as scary but I still have memories that my 8 year old self watched as if I watched for the first time. Back when I was a believer, I considered myself a Patty because I didn't want to rid myself of the things I enjoyed as a kid like horror movies, rock music and magic 8 balls all of these I was told was straight up demonic and a direct hotline to Lucifer. Contradicting? It sure was. For a time I actually did stop enjoying these things however I inevitably came back to enjoying what I enjoyed best and distanced myself from christianity. No one, family or friends, knew because I just simply didn't want to talk about it nor felt the need to "brag" about no longer believing. It is what it is so I'll just leave it at that.
No disclaimers, rating, ect. segments will be provided since this is a recap not a review.
For the curious, this whole movie is available on YouTube for free. The comment section is wild.
There's additional movies in this series, three more. I do plan to revisit all of them in due time. So stay tuned.
