[1] The film follows young switchboard operator Fay Crocker (Sierra McCormick) and radio disc jockey Everett Sloan (Jake Horowitz) as they discover a mysterious audio frequency that could be extraterrestrial in origin.

He and his friend Fay test her new tape recorder, and Everett walks her to her job as a switchboard operator before starting his own night shift at the WOTW radio station.

Warned that telling anyone about the classified project would "endanger America", he and the other personnel built a large underground bunker to house an enormous unknown object.

Billy developed a lung condition that he believes was caused by his time in the desert and learned of other instances of the military burying similar cargo in secret locations, where the same signal was heard.

A friend of his managed to record the signal and sent copies to Billy and others who worked on the projects; one tape was given to a member of the Air Force in Cayuga, now deceased.

They race to the switchboard office, where Fay receives numerous reports of "something in the sky", and they meet Gerald and Bertsie, who have been driving in pursuit of the same unidentified flying object.

With Everett recording their conversation, Mabel claims that the phenomena seen across town are spaceships, piloted by aliens who use their message to hypnotize and abduct humans.

Everett plays the recording of Mabel reciting the alien message, sending Gerald and Bertsie into a trance and nearly causing them to crash.

Starting with line 325 of Act I, scene II, Prospero addresses Caliban: For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up.

Urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee ... [2] According to the director Andrew Patterson, the film came out of one of the ideas he had in the previous decade, which simply said: "1950s black and white.

In order to get the period details correct, the production team removed the three-point line of the basketball court in the gym at a cost of $20,000, and they found functional switchboards which were used at that time.

The site's critics consensus reads: "An engrossing sci-fi thriller that transcends its period trappings, The Vast of Night suggests great things for debuting director Andrew Patterson.

"[13] Amy Taubin of Film Comment called it "a display of visionary moviemaking intelligence", comparing it to first features by directors such as Richard Kelly and Christopher Nolan.

[15] Variety's Amy Nicholson praised the film as charming and inventive, writing, "At the midpoint, Patterson wows with a tracking shot that seems to race a half-mile down a quiet street, take a left-hook through a parking lot, sprint through an ongoing basketball game, and zip up the crowded bleachers before plunging out of a window.

He brings Everett, who always seems to have a cigarette dangling from his lips, to vivid life with a boatload of charisma and an unparalleled sense of cool that channels American’ Graffiti’s John Milner or Dazed and Confused’s David Wooderson.