A THIEF IN THE NIGHT SERIES MOVIE

The movie was filmed mostly in Des Moines and Carlisle by Thompson and another Iowan, director Russell Doughten. “It told people that you don’t want to not be a Christian, because if he comes and you don’t know the Lord, and he takes his own back, then you’re gonna go through seven years of hell.” “I thought, people need to know about this,” Thompson says. He’s now in his mid-70s and also living in Des Moines. Producer Don Thompson made the film for about $60,000 in 1972. You see, “A Thief in the Night” is more than an apocalyptic thriller – the film presents itself as truth. “I was excited I was not real sure about all the ‘religious’ stuff that was associated with it.”ĭunning, who still lives in the Des Moines area today, eventually embraced the conservative Christian theology of the filmmakers, including their beliefs about the end of the world. “At the time, It was purely just a job,” she says. She was just turning 21 just as the movie was filming 40 years ago. Patty is played by Patty Dunning, who also goes by her married name, Risinger. Those left behind face a seven-year period of terrible suffering called the Great Tribulation. As the grainy footage zooms in on a clock radio, we learn that thousands of so-called “Bible-believing Christians” around the world have been taken to heaven by God in what’s known as the Rapture. In the opening sequence, we meet Patty – a young woman with feathered, blonde, 1970s hair – waking up to find that her husband has vanished from their bed. It begins at the end of the world – at least, the world as we know it.

The movie was made in Iowa and turns 40 this year. If you grew up in a conservative Christian household any time in the last few decades, you may have seen a movie called “A Thief in the Night.” Otherwise, think B-movie horror flick – for Christian kids.

A thief in the night series