31 Nights of Horror: Night Nine, "Coherence"

​Horror scholars might glance at Coherence's summary as a modern update on the ’80s cult favorite Night of the Comet, and while the two may very well draw from the same real-life mysteries, they do so to entirely different ends. Comet is a lighthearted fantasy about what two teenage girls from the ’80s would do when everyone in the world (or at least New York) disappears.

Coherence has a little more on its mind. It begins simply: a group of friends are meeting for the first time in a while on the same night a large comet is about to pass by Earth. It comes up in conversation the myriad side effects comets like this have had on people, and references are made to the Tunguska Event and other spooky incidents of family no longer recognizing family, and so forth--and then, the power goes out.

What follows is one of the twistiest and most engrossing sci-fi movies of the decade, somewhere between the brilliantly inscrutable Primer and the crowd-pleasing mind-bend of Triangle. The cast is game and frequently excellent, their improvised dialogue lending the proceedings a layer of believability that gets way under the skin--and deep into the bedrock of secrets on which all long-running friendships are built--as things complicate in the second act and gets downright crazy in the third. Coherence is simply not to be missed.

-Brian L.

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