Amazon today released the official trailer for Andrew Patterson’s science fiction film The Vast Of Night which premiered at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival. Set in 1950s New Mexico, the film starring Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, and Bruce Davis, follows two teens investigating a strange, audio frequency. The Vast Of Night opens in theaters on March 13, 2020.

“You are entering a realm between clandestine and forgotten.”

So begins the story of one fateful night in 1950s New Mexico. Photographed in soft, inky-dark tones and shot in nearly real time, The Vast Of Night follows young, winsome switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and charismatic radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) as they discover a strange audio frequency that could change their small town and the future forever.

Set at the dawn of the space-race and replete with uncanny and ironic period details, The Vast Of Night falls down the rabbit hole of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone and stitches together a narrative scavenger hunt through dropped phone calls, AM radio signals, secret reels of tape forgotten in a library, switchboards, crossed patchlines and an anonymous phone call. The unexpected is explored both in the film’s twisty plot and its bold cinematic style, which includes stealthy long camera movements and even a spookily effective black screen.

McCormick and Horowitz are joined by a cast of Texas and Oklahoma locals, including scene-stealer Gail Cronauer as an elderly woman with a dark secret, and Bruce Davis, whose voice we hear during a spellbinding phone call scene. Director Andrew Patterson, an Oklahoma City native making his feature film debut, announces himself as a major new American voice in cinema and storytelling.

With allusions to classic television, old radio shows, and movie masters such as Michael Mann and David Fincher, The Vast Of Night is nonetheless a breathtaking original. The experience drops viewers into a time and a town hidden away — and with quiet mysteries which only present themselves to those curious and patient enough to hear them.

Director Andrew Patterson works and resides in Oklahoma and has received a strong reception to his debut film The Vast Of Night like Rolling Stone calling his film an “ingenious debut” and Slash Film declaring that it will “leave you wanting more films from Patterson down the road”.  Amazon Studios acquired this first film after a debut at 2019 Slamdance leading to a several-blocks-long line for its sold out 2019 TIFF.