The Big Picture

  • A Thief in the Night was the first Christian eschatology film and had a significant impact on evangelical viewers, often traumatizing them as children and teenagers.
  • The film uses fear as a tool to coerce conversion and relies heavily on the belief in the Rapture and the concept of the Antichrist.
  • The movie's portrayal of devout Christians as robotic and the world government as oppressive reflects the views of many Christians who fear a new world order and the Mark of the Beast.

"There's no time to change your mind...You've been left behind..." In 1972, A Thief in the Night laid the groundwork for Christian cinema to follow. It was the first of its kind: a movie focusing on Christian eschatology. Although low-budget – $68,000 - it eventually earned $4.2 million in the first decade of its release. It became a popular movie to show at churches, often focusing on youth attendees. However, the film has been cited as traumatic for people who watched it as children and teenagers. Of course, the goal of the film was to coerce conversion by using scare tactics presented in the movie. Unlike fire and brimstone preaching, which was limited to a pulpit, advancing technology brought about new ways to pressure people into converting to Christianity. Fear is one of the strongest human emotions, and A Thief in the Night uses it as a hook to goad people into becoming born-again Christians. While A Thief in the Night might seem like a low-budget, campy film to those who have lived outside of Christianity, particularly the evangelical fundamentalist branches, for those who grew up Christian in the Boomer and Gen X generations, it was traumatizing.

A Thief in the Night is unique in that it’s a horror movie that probably wouldn’t classify itself as such. And for many, its horror resides in the fact that they believe what is shown to be true future events. Wes Craven isn’t suggesting with A Nightmare on Elm Street that an evil spirit with bladed hands that kills teenagers in their dreams is something that’d exist within reality. And Stephen King doesn’t believe that a girl could kill people with telekinetic powers like in Carrie. But A Thief in the Night’s director, Donald W. Thompson, viewed the film’s subject not merely as a scary story, but as real events that have yet to take place.

What Is 'A Thief in the Night' About?

A Thief in the Night (1972)
Image Via Mark IV Pictures

Beginning in media res, Patty Myers (Patty Dunning) awakes to a news report on the radio announcing that millions of people have vanished from the earth. Panicked, she runs to the bathroom, discovering her husband's still-running electric razor in the sink. He’s gone, too… The film backtracks to a sermon that Patty and her friends are attending. The youth minister Duane (Duane Coller) is sermonizing about the “Rapture.” Duane, clearly not only speaking to Patty and her friends but to the film’s viewers as well, warns his listeners that what he is preaching is not a joke and not a fairytale.

As the film continues, it goes back to where it started with Patty realizing that she has been left behind. As the world forms into a one-world totalitarian government – UNITE – Patty must escape the authorities to avoid receiving the “identification” mark. Those who refuse "identification" are subject to arrest and execution. While trying to flee from the government, she is cornered by UNITE agents on a dam. While they close in on her, she falls off the dam to her death. Patty then wakes up, realizing it was all a dream. But the radio is on; an emergency broadcast announces the disappearances of millions of people. She looks for her husband, only to find his still-running electric razor in the sink. He's gone, too. It happened. As she screams and tearfully slumps on her bed, “THE END…IS NEAR” appears.

What Is Christian Eschatology?

A Thief in the Night 1972
Image Via Mark IV Pictures

The Rapture is a belief shared mostly by evangelical and fundamentalist branches of Christianity. It's the belief that Jesus Christ will return a second time and will instantaneously remove Christians from the earth and take them back to Heaven with him. Further, they believe that when the Rapture happens, the world will enter into a period known as the Great Tribulation. During this time, curses will be broken over the world such as war, disease, and complete calamity. Their beliefs tell them that it’ll be the worst time the world has ever encountered. A leader will arise, gaining power over the entire world. To Christians, this leader will be the Antichrist.

People will be forced to receive the Mark of the Beast on their right hand or forehead, referred to as "identification" in the film; those who refuse it will be persecuted and martyred, but those who accept it will be tormented forever in the Lake of Fire. They believe this will all take place over seven years. And at the end of the seven years, they believe the Antichrist and his army will bring upon Armageddon only to be defeated by Christ and his heavenly army. There are some different schools of thought regarding Christian eschatology. Some Christians believe Tribulation will take place before the Rapture; some believe the Rapture will serve as a halfway point for the Tribulation, while many believe it will only occur after the Rapture.

The film’s decision to have the United Nations form into UNITE is representative of how many Christians feel about international bodies and "Big Government." Many Christians believe that the United Nations will serve as a vehicle that will create a new world order in the End Times, which will be led by the Antichrist. This is also why some Christians are uneasy about evolving credit card functions. A lot of Christians see this as a predecessor for the Mark of the Beast.

'A Thief in the Night' Paints Devout Christians in a Trance

A Thief in the Night Christian Movie
Image Via Mark IV Pictures

Although Patty identifies as Christian, her lukewarm devotion results in her being left behind. The film makes an obvious statement in that it believes that Christianity like Patty’s is not worthy of Heaven. Patty's husband Jim (Mike Niday), her friend Jenny (Colleen Niday), and Duane, all devout Christians, behave as if they're in a trance. Something is unsettling about their behavior, almost seeming cult-like. The devout Christians in the film almost appear to be robotic as if they’re losing the core of who they are to their beliefs, which is something the film obliquely calls for. However, Patty's secular friends, Diane (Maryann Rachford) and Jerry (Thom Rachford), who likewise are left behind and eventually revealed to be co-conspirators with UNITE, by contrast, are brimming with life and personality, eager to take full advantage of their youth as if they’re a young couple in a John Mellencamp song. They don't seem to be under the same eerie haze that the devout Christians in the movie seem engrossed by.

'A Thief in the Night' Traumatized Generations of Christians

MIT film and media professor, Heather Hendershot, spoke about the film's effect on older generations in 2010: "Today, many teen evangelicals have not seen A Thief in the Night, but virtually every evangelical over 30 I've talked to is familiar with it, and most have seen it... I have found that A Thief in the Night is the only evangelical film that viewers cite directly and repeatedly as provoking a conversion experience." Historian, Randall Balmer, has also attested to the film's influence on Christian media: "It is only a slight exaggeration to say that A Thief in the Night affected the evangelical film industry the way that sound or color affected Hollywood." Growing up in church, it was common to hear older congregates speak about how the film terrified them when they were younger. Even the movie's unnerving title track "I Wish We'd All Been Ready," composed by Larry Norman, and performed by The Fishmarket Combo after Duane's Rapture sermon, became the anthem for the Jesus movement.

A Thief in the Night is just the first of a four-film series. A Distant Thunder, Image of the Beast, and The Prodigal Planet are all its sequels. And compared to the later films in the series which feature monsters, mutants, nuclear war, water turning into blood, and a child being executed for not taking the mark – I’m serious; that happens – A Thief in the Night is the least dramatic of the quadrilogy. The sequels show UNITE snuffing out Christians (people who converted to Christianity after the Rapture) to execute them by guillotine. But the sequels' heightened fervor hasn’t diminished the trauma A Thief in the Night has inflicted on people.

However, many Millennial Christians are unfamiliar with A Thief in the Night. Left Behind, which came out in 2000, and was remade in 2014, was the Christian eschatological movie that traumatized later generations. Left Behind follows the same premise as A Thief in the Night – the Rapture takes place, and people are left behind, trying to make sense of an emerging new world order and the chaos unfolding around them.

What Is "Rapture Scare" and How Does It Tie into 'A Thief in the Night'?

Nicolas Cage in Left Behind 2014
Image Via Freestyle Releasing

For many who have grown up in church, the Rapture has by far been one of the most traumatic elements of Christianity. The intensity of the belief can anguish people in a way that only those who've grown up believing in it can truly understand. “Rapture scare” or “Rapture anxiety” is a common phenomenon experienced by many people who have grown up being inculcated into believing that the Rapture is real and that they have been left behind. There's even an example of it in A Thief in the Night when Jenny's young sister panics when she is not able to find Jenny or her mother, thinking that the rapture has taken place.

My own adolescence was overtaken by such fears. In school, if I heard what sounded like a crash or a sudden loud noise, I’d find any excuse to leave class, usually citing a made-up illness, to explore the campus to see if people suddenly disappeared. I never let on that this was my true motivation for excusing myself from class, of course. What could I have said, “Sorry to bother you, but I need to excuse myself to check the school to see if anyone has suddenly vanished. And if so, I will then need to excuse myself to prepare for seven years of Tribulation that I hope to survive till the end, while also avoiding the Mark of the Beast to not damn myself into eternal torment in the Lake of Fire." One time, thinking I'd been left behind, I shattered a window on a door by hitting it due to the panic I was experiencing. My world was just as fragile as the shards of glass that lay before me. What was supposed to be a carefree time in my life was instead filled with anxiety about what I believed was to come and could come any moment, sometimes I'd experienced Rapture scare several times in a day. It even became a paralyzing thing for me, immobilizing me with fear at some points.

Even if one who grew up watching A Thief in the Night or Left Behind decides to leave the faith that they were indoctrinated into behind, the terror created by such films can still provide a lifetime of trauma. For many who decide to step away from evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity, events like finding one's self alone and not being able to get ahold of people can provide reflexive anxiety instilled by having been conditioned by rapture theology. The fear ingrained into people who grew up being taught that in the blink of an eye, the world could be in disarray can be a trepidation for the rest of someone’s life.

Scream terrorized audiences by introducing them to a self-aware genre of slasher films. Evil Dead frightened people by revitalizing zombie movies. The Blair Witch Project horrified viewers by pioneering found-footage scary movies. But with those films, the screams and fright ended with the credits. However, for those who grew up watching A Thief in the Night, the terror continued even after the movie ended.

A Thief in the Night is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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