A Quiet Place, directed by John Krasinski, is a horror thriller that follows Lee and Evelyn Abbott as they try to protect their family in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by sound-sensitive aliens. With A Quiet Place: Day One set to release in theaters soon, let’s revisit the film that started it all.

A Quiet Life

A Quiet Place starts 89 days after a catastrophic event that leads to a post-apocalyptic world. This event brought about mysterious creatures that will kill anything that makes a sound. The film revolves around Lee and Evelyn Abbott, played by John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, and their children Regan and Marcus who are played by Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. Throughout the film, viewers are shown the Abbott family’s new way of life to avoid the monsters that lurk around their farm, and the obstacles that can come about while trying to live that life. Some of the adjustments the family had to make to be silent include walking barefoot on sand trails, eating food on leaves of lettuce, and even playing board games with woven fabric pieces. An aspect that made this family prepared more than others was the fact that the family knew sign language before the event that started this chaos due to the character Regan being deaf. The main obstacle that this film revolves around is the character Evelyn being pregnant and her family preparing to bring a newborn into a world of silence.

Most horror/thriller movies these days tend to have complex plots to lure in an audience, but A Quiet Place utilizes the basic elements of a horror/thriller story and fleshes them out. Some of these basic elements include having a frightening setting and a relatable protagonist that the audience will care about. Most of the film takes place on the Abbott’s isolated farm surrounded by deadly sound-sensitive creatures. The Abbott family is also a smart and loving group that cares about each other, which makes it easy for the audience to root for them. At its core, this movie is about two parents trying to protect their children.

Let Them Hear

One of the biggest aspects of this film that makes it worth watching is the incredible acting of the entire cast. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt have excellent chemistry throughout the film, and this authentic performance makes sense due to the pair being married with kids in real life. Apart from these two veteran actors, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe also provide impactful performances, especially for being child actors. As mentioned before, Simmonds’ character is deaf in the film, which made her scenes some of the most suspenseful due to the character not being able to hear if the monsters are near. A reason why her scenes felt so real was because Simmonds is deaf in real life. This meant that during set, she couldn’t hear what was going on around her which provided authentic facial expressions and body language if a person were to be deaf with a razor-sharp monster lurking behind them.

While most horror films revolve around a serial killer or form of demonic activity, A Quiet Place made itself unique through its visuals and sounds or lack thereof. For the majority of the movie, there is no verbal dialogue, which means that the film had to effectively use cinematography to convey what was going on to the audience. When there was an above-normal level sound in the film, it was an alert of suspense to let the audience know the monsters could be near.

A Moment of Silence

The aspect that held back this film from being a perfect horror movie debut for John Krasinski had to be the ending. Throughout the film, there are subtle hints that show what could be the monster’s weakness. The problem is there weren’t any points in the film where the characters pick this up, at least until the ending. Because of this, it made the suspense come to a halt, leaving the main characters with an almost immediate solution without any impactful build-up.

Verdict

After rewatching this movie six years later, it is safe to say that A Quiet Place still holds up as a top-tier horror film. I still remember the environment I was in when I saw this movie, during opening day, where it was a theater full of silence and an auditorium where people would hold in sneezes and try not to eat popcorn to stay silent. I cannot wait to go back to this environment when A Quiet Place: Day One releases on June 28th.

Rating: 9/10