After opening at this year’s South By Southwest to enormous praise and breathless five-star reviews, John Krasinski’s directorial debut, A Quiet Place, has finally begun screening to audiences across the country. Horror fans already chomping at the bit to see it for themselves should be very excited: it lives up to the hype. Continuing a (much welcome) recent trend among modern horror films, its plot moved briskly, running at ninety minutes. But those ninety minutes are … something else.
From its opening moment, the audience is dropped into the middle of an apocalyptic hellscape … but where no sound can be made. No further detail about how this new world came to be, but it doesn’t matter. There are only two brief shots showing some newspaper headlines (in big, bold letters: “NO SOUND”), reminiscent of a similar trope in Day of the Dead. And that’s it.
The Abbott family are your eyes and ears through A Quiet Place.The only group of characters in the story, the group of five begins the movie (very quietly) searching for supplies at a convenience store. When the youngest goes to reach for a toy and almost drops it, you can see the wave of fear and panic on both adults’ faces. It is effective, brutal and markedly proves why you have to be silent: creatures from space are now on Earth, hunting everything that makes a sound.
As the movie moves to its farmhouse scenes, showing off a family dynamic in complete silence, the tension only elevates. Emily Blunt’s character is pregnant, which, after the events of the movie’s opening scenes, only adds to the drama and peril.
The plot does not do anything groundbreaking for the horror genre …but it does everything very well. There are definitely some parallels to Don’t Breathe, as well as twist master M Night Shyamalan’s Signs. It even has some touches of It Comes at Night (except this time, there’s a definite payoff).
The monsters in this film are well done, with the first half of the movie teasing quick glimpses of the creature design, adding a Jaws-like sense of suspense. These sightless aliens end up being a weird cross between Stranger Things’ Demogorgon and (I can’t believe I am saying this) the Graboids’ offspring from Tremors 2. They are a very welcome addition to the ever-growing monster movie vocabulary.
A Quiet Place is a tightly woven movie with very little spoken dialogue. It’s a suspenseful movie that foreshadows everything pretty blatantly, but without ruining the tension and dread. And, while there are a few jump scares, every single one of them feels earned. Run (quietly) to your nearest theatre, grab a friend and get ready for a nerve-racking ride.
