A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) Paramount/Horror-Sci-Fi RT: 99 minutes Rated PG-13 (terror, violent content/bloody images) Director: Michael Sarnoski Screenplay: Michael Sarnoski Music: Alexis Grapsas Cinematography: Pat Scola Release date: June 28, 2024 (US) Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou, Eliane Umuhire, Schnitzel, Nico.
Rating: ***
Every story has a beginning, even the ones involving cataclysmic events like an alien invasion. A Quiet Place: Day One shows us the day it all changed for the people of Earth. As I’m sure you recall from the previous two films, the world is overrun with blind extra-terrestrials with an acute sense of hearing. That’s how they find and catch their prey- i.e. us. Therefore, it’s in the best interest of the survivors to not make a sound. That’s not so easy if you live in bustling metropolis like New York City.
Director Michael Sarnoski (Pig) informs us in the opening titles that NYC normally operates at 90 decibels, the same level as a sustained scream. This sets the stage for a scenario from which few will come out alive. The character at the heart of the story is Sam (Nyong’o, Black Panther), a terminally ill hospice patient in her final days. She spends her days writing angry poetry and hanging out with her emotional support cat Frodo (played by feline actors Schnitzel and Nico). At the behest of her care worker (Wolff, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2), she agrees to accompany the others to see a show in town on the condition they stop for pizza afterwards. Things don’t quite pan out as expected.
Something is going on, something major enough to necessitate an immediate return to the hospice facility, no detours (i.e. no pizza). Up in the sky, a bunch of fiery, meteor-like objects are plummeting to the ground. That’s immediately followed by the first appearance of the aliens who start attacking the panicking masses. Sam, who gets knocked unconscious in the fracas, wakes up in a puppet theater where she’s instructed by a familiar person (Hounsou) to remain silent.
Sam eventually strikes out on her own. If she’s going to die, she’s going to do it her happy place, Harlem where she grew up. She’s later joined by Eric (Quinn, Stranger Things), a shell-shocked law student from England who proves useful on more than one occasion. Together, they quietly make their way to Harlem experiencing multiple close encounters on the way.
If the Big Apple doesn’t look right, that’s because Sarnoski actually filmed A Quiet Place: Day One on a London soundstage. I guess Toronto is too clean a place to stand in for a city in ruins. In any event, this version of NYC is a depressing, imposing place thanks to incredible work by production designer Simon Bowles and cinematographer Pat Scola. The look of the movie is clearly inspired by Children of Men. The two main characters’ journey through this urban wasteland is terrifying in its complete silence. Credit for that goes to sound designer Kate Bilinski who knows how to effectively contrast quiet and sudden loud noises.
The acting by the two leads is very good. Unable to speak without sealing their doom, the pair communicates a lot with their faces. This is how the silent movie stars used to do it. Cinema has always been a visual medium. Nyong’o and Quinn, by way of Sarnoski’s tight directing, understand and convey that through expressions and gestures. However, the best performance(s) in the movie comes from the cats playing Frodo. I’m a dog person myself, but this cat is cool. BTW, he makes it to the end of the movie so cat lovers needn’t worry about being traumatized.
As good as horror-thriller A Quiet Place: Day One is, it doesn’t hide the fact that it’s just more of the same, just in a different locale. It’s the least of the three movies, but it’s still pretty good. It’s interesting to see how it all started, but didn’t we get a glimpse of that in A Quiet Place Part II? I’d kind of like to see how the government is handing the situation. We get a peek in this movie with military planes blowing up the bridges to prevent the uninvited visitors from leaving the island (they can’t swim, remember?). But what I want to know is if they knew about the invasion ahead of time. I see the makings of a nifty conspiracy thriller here. Maybe that can be the next Quiet Place entry.
