A Thief in the Night (1972)

This movie was commonly shown in churches in the 1970's, and frightened many non-believers so badly that some of them did begin to consider their own spiritual condition and come to salvation. I was one of those people, having seen the film in a Pentecostal church with my then best friend back in high school in 1974. I was raised in a Methodist church that seldom spoke of salvation and never spoke of the rapture, so the entire concept presented in the film was new to me at the time.Thus, I guess you could say this film did some good in the fact that some were brought to Christ either as a direct or indirect result of watching it. However, it does tend to rock already saved ones into a sense of complacency in relation to the doctrine of the rapture of all Christians prior to the great tribulation, when a careful study of the Bible shows that this is not the case. In that sense, the film does a disservice.As other reviewers have mentioned, the acting is B-rated, but that is not really the point of the movie. It was not trying to break box office records or win awards. I haven't seen this film in 41 years, but the memory that still stands out the most to me is that of the heroine of the film going to church on Sunday, trying to find something of the spiritual experience her new husband has found, and being treated instead to a very dead dull sermon. After the rapture, she goes to the church and finds the tormented preacher who has also been left behind lamenting - "Another one!". In other words, apparently large numbers of his parishioners as well as himself have never known Christ's salvation.From a psychological standpoint you have to ask yourself why this film is so frightening. Most people, especially Americans, have been taught their whole lives about the torments of hell that await those who die unredeemed, yet nothing seems to frighten people more than the idea of being left on earth by God to be hunted and persecuted by their fellow man. This is probably because most people have never seen an actual demon, but they have seen plenty of the evil man is capable of, and it is therefore more real to them.

I saw this movie around 1980ish when I was 18. Yeah it gave me a lot to think about, which is the whole point.For all of the people saying that kids shouldn't watch this, I have to wonder why this is so bad and so many of the other horrible things in the media are okay? If you're not a believer I totally get it, but if you're a Christian, this is what the bible says will happen.Sure, the acting isn't the greatest, but I love movies like this. They weren't really meant to be blockbuster hits, their intent is to get the gospel message across to people. As Christians, this is the purpose.There are also a couple of sequels: "A Distant Thunder" is also one of my favorites.

I was raised in a "very Christian" household since birth. I was saved before I saw this movie and the rest of the series and was forced to watch it in a youth group at my church. This movie was highly disturbing. I saw it when I was about 12 years old and literally had nightmares about it for years. I used to lay awake in bed and listen for the sounds of my mom's footsteps upstairs. If I didn't hear her footsteps, I would sneak upstairs to make sure she hadn't been raptured. I used to pray so hard every night for salvation because I was terrified of Jesus forgetting me. This is definitely not something I will show to my kids until they are much older, if at all. It took me years to shake the fear that this movie gave me.

As some other comments show, this movie might scare you, when you're a little child. (And that is probably all that it is good for.)However, if you're older, this movie only does one thing: suck majorly -and thereby I don't mean the acting, its soundtrack, cutting or s.th. like that. I'm simply talking about the "plot" (if you can call it that). SPOILERS ahead ------------------------I don't want to give any more spoilers than necessary (if after reading this, you really still want to watch this movie) but if you graduated from any school, this is just a big insult of your intelligence. When watching this, I was stunned most of the time, because what was happening was just THAT stupid.This includes:-the forming of UNITE (an evil UN-association) --> we are just supposed to believe it's evil. is it even evil at all? if so: why is it evil?-the mark of evil in the form of a tattoo --> there is no necessity to impose this on the people, so why the hell (no pun intended) are they doing it? -inviting Christ to your heart merely as lip service -->because there's nothing anybody, who in this movie is considered "a real Christian", ever does, besides saying that stupid prayer. so...just say that prayer before the rapture and you're saved - no matter what?! Thus, rating 1/10