A Quiet Place: Deafening Dread

If my review of Hush is any indication, I love movies that know how to get sound (or lack thereof) right. When this is done properly, particularly in the thriller/horror genre, it lends itself to a sense of dread far and beyond what any typical slasher movie can offer. When this sound perfects silence, however, we the audience become just as much a victim as those we root for to survive. It instills in its audience both a sense of foreboding (knowing that something bad will happen) tempered only by the false flags and red herrings that come with the territory (we all jump at innocuous sounds that are harmless in anticipation of the truly bad things to come). With John Krasinski's major debut film A Quiet Place, this aspect as been honed to near perfection.

Yes, readers, A Quiet Place is awesome simply by exceeding your expectations of a horror movie. The limited script and sound design cast a shadow of dread over ever frame, the peaceful setting and ambient noises make every sudden loud noise shock and terrify for what it may bring, Millicent Simmonds is both brilliant and endearing without uttering a word and, mostly due to the film's almost religious dedication to the power of silence, even its quiet moments do little outside of making you wonder what will happen next. It does horror without seeming to try and it does so to a near perfect balance. How did a modern, big budget horror move pull something like this off?

Unfortunately, much like Hush before it and due to the previously mentions terror-filled silence, most of the actual scares here equate to either jump scares (compounded by the audience's anticipations) and the traditional you're-looking-in-the-wrong-direction-BOO misdirection common among movies of the Insidious or Conjuring brand of horror. While this isn't bad at first, it begins to become rather predictable as the movie nears its conclusion and, as a result, tends to deaden viewers to what was certainly a twist Krasinski was hoping for when he direct the climax. This, mixed with the common post-apocalyptic trope of not really explaining what the monsters are or exactly how they destroyed the world in a few short years, tends to cause unanswered questions that linger long after the closing credits. If your big takeaway from a post-apocalyptic horror movie is “How did it come to this?”, you probably lazed around the script writing process.

As for watching it, can you sit quietly in a theater for ninety minutes? If so, go for this and enjoy not only a pretty awesome movie but the fact that your sitting in a theater with many people unable to do that, making the movie scarier based just on the jumpier audience member's reactions (which are sometimes more fun than the movie's more boring filler parts). Do you tend to fidget when a movie's becomes uncomfortable? Good luck being the center of attention when those around you scream because you accidentally shook a cup of ice in a dead silent theater (which is also pretty hilarious). It's a horror movie win-win! How often does that happen?

John Krasinski (he's that guy everybody likes from The Office) makes a stellar major studio debut with A Quiet Place, a dread-filled, white knuckle ride with a frustrating, yet simple to follow, premise. After the humanity has been wiped out by indestructible, alien-like creatures who hunt by sound (the movie never explains exactly what they are), the Abbott family tries to survive by living in complete silence on a isolated farm in the woods. Minimal sign language will be learned, you'll constantly be staring at the corners of the screen for potential jump scares, Emily Blunt will sell her weary and protective mother role for every ounce of emotion she can squeeze out of her face and you will probably spend the majority of the movie telling yourself how tough you must be for not jumping at that last jump scare when HERE'S THE REAL THREAT! BOO!

My score: 8/10. I know I'm supposed to be sad and mournful when [spoiler removed] dies for making too much noise, but I just couldn't bring myself to cry for someone who died so stupidly. Much like the case of teenagers and Tide Pods: Don't weep for the stupid or you'll be crying all week.