A Quiet Place



This week’s box office champ is another one of those so-called horror films. I say ‘so-called’ because it doesn’t meet my criteria for horror films, but, from beginning to end, A Quiet Place does indeed have the feel of a pure horror film, so I won’t complain too much about using that genre. Of course, since I am not a fan of horror films, that horror feel doesn’t appeal to me. Nevertheless, this terrifying film is uniquely captivating, beginning with its opening scene of a deserted town in which the Abbott family is silently foraging for food and supplies.

It isn’t much of a spoiler (since it’s revealed in the first minutes of the film) to tell you that the world (of the very near future) has gone quiet. Not because of a plague that has wiped out humanity (as in last year’s similar film, It Comes at Night) or because of a nuclear winter, but because there are fast-moving big-eared monsters at large that kill anything which dares to make a sound. We don’t know how many people still survive on this quiet earth, where they have learned to live very quiet lives, because we only really get to see the one family. 

John Krasinski, who also directed and co-wrote A Quiet Place, stars as Lee Abbott, the husband and father, who is an engineer skilled in working with sounds and who is trying to find a way for his wife, Evelyn (real-life partner Emily Blunt), to give birth without alerting the ever-present monsters, and for their deaf teenage daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmons, who is deaf), to ‘hear’ the monsters’ approach. Their other child is 12-year-old Marcus, who lives in constant fear (as is only proper in such an environment).

The audience also lives in constant fear. And they can’t even eat popcorn to try to calm themselves because much of the film is so utterly silent that no one in my full theatre dared to eat or drink or cough or make any sound except on the few occasions when there was music or when the loud monsters came to call. It was a freaky experience, but one I appreciated - the sense of a full theatre of viewers holding their collective breath for 90 minutes is, I suppose, one of the appeals of horror films, but it rarely works for me. This experience did.

But what makes this ‘horror’ film uniquely watchable is the family dynamic. A Quiet Place is primarily the story of a family, albeit one caught in a unique situation. The way this family is presented, with well-developed characters and convincing relationships conveyed with little dialogue is a very satisfying film-watching experience, especially when you are sitting in constant fear. Add some excellent acting (especially by Blunt) and great cinematography and A Quiet Place gets a solid ***+. My mug is up, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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