When did the horror of a double-booked vacation rental become a thing? That’s the hook for two new releases, “Barbarian,” set to premiere later this month, and “Gone in the Night,” directed by Eli Horowitz and starring Winona Ryder and Dermot Mulroney. In Horowitz’s slick thriller (co-written with Matthew Derby), Ryder plays Kath, whose young lover, Max (John Gallagher Jr.), disappears on that titular night.
As they arrive at an isolated cabin, it’s clear someone else is already there – another younger couple. If either of us encountered the aggressive disdain that Al (Owen Teague) shows the pair, we’d hop back in our vintage Volvo and drive home, dark roads be damned. But no. After some thorny negotiations facilitated by Al’s girlfriend Greta (Brianne Tju digging deep into the ruse), Kath and Max stay. Soon things get frisky and weird. As an adult in the bedroom (aging is a theme), Kath heads for her bed. When she wakes up, she learns from a sullen Al that Max and Greta are gone.
After being stung and then enraged, Kath begins to wonder how this abandonment could have happened. Her need to know leads her to the shack’s owner, Barlow (a handsomely grizzled Mulroney). They make a likeable pair as they set out to solve the mystery of a jilting. Follow twists galore, including the couple surprises again and again. In an amusing pretense of the frenzied finale, the filmmakers jump, helped by the nuance and the aplomb of Ryder, from one contemporary fable to another, also born of desires shaped by culture.
Gone into the night
Rated R for foul language and a few gory moments. Duration: 1h30. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.