I'm truly embarrassed to admit that I suffered through this film four or five times, while growing up in a Baptist church and attending a WASPish Protestant elementary school. One of the most abhorrent motion pictures ever made (second only to Lamont Johnson's reprehensible "Lipstick" back in 1976), "A Thief in the Night" has -- sadly -- become a Bible belt staple -- one of the only "Evangelical Christian cult films." How wildly popular is it among conservative Christians? Let's put it this way: one could walk into any "film night" at a midwestern Baptist church during the eighties and nineties and catch this motion picture, nine times out of ten (until John Schmidt took over by making a series of contemporary Christian films that actually remain watchable to this day -- "The Wait of the World" (1989), etc.)
I fail to understand how anyone could even -sit through- "A Thief in the Night" (let alone heap unqualified praise onto the film). Not only are the production values, the direction, the 'performances,' the script, the music, and the editing ludicrous, but one can imagine the film feeling dated even back in 1972. (The characters seem to be walking around on another planet).
As other IMDB users imply in their critiques, it might be possible for a film of this nature to evolve into a secular cult item -- a joke, to be screened as a secular midnight movie and at 70's cinematic shlock fests, ala "Toomorrow," the mysterious and elusive "Darktown Strutters," and "BJ Lang Presents." Ahh, such is not the case. The "filmmakers" rendered this impossible by dampering "A Thief in the Night" with some of the sourest, most depressing dramatic overtones in movie history and ensuring that it can never (NEVER) be *enjoyed* as entertaining camp. From first frame to last, it remains repulsively gloomy, angry, and depressing. This, from a film about Christ's second coming -- a subject which should impart a message of hope, not of fear.
In short: nothing fun about this one, folks. It's a *miserable* experience, and it may even fall into the same category as "The Incredible Torture Show," about which, Danny Peary once wrote, "If any film deserves to be banned, this deserves strong consideration."
The worst sidelight of the film: the terrible light it continues to shed on conservative Christians, and on the Revelation of St. John per se. "Left Behind" (1999), starring Kirk Cameron and based on the bestselling book series (a film I have not seen), covers the same ground and is evidently far more watchable.
