A Quiet Place (2018) Paramount/Horror RT: 90 minutes Rated PG-13 (terror, some bloody images) Director: John Krasinski Screenplay: Bryan Woods, Scott Beck and John Krasinski Music: Marco Beltrami Cinematography: Charlotte Bruus Christensen Release date: April 6, 2018 (US) Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward. Box Office: $188M (US)/$341M (World)
Rating: ***
I could sit here and tell you that A Quiet Place is a scary monster movie and leave it at that, but I’d be doing the movie a great disservice. Technically, it’s true. A Quiet Place has monsters and they are quite scary, but it goes beyond that. It’s not just an effective horror film; it’s also a metaphor for family life. It’s about a parent’s natural instinct to protect their young from dangerous outside forces that threaten to tear apart the family unit and the guilt they feel when they fail to do so. In this particular case, the outside forces are large carnivorous creatures that hunt by sound. If you make any noise, they’ll find you and kill you. The only solution is to live in silence.
At some point in the very near-future, the world population is reduced drastically by an alien invasion. At least I think it’s an alien invasion; the movie never comes right out and says it, a recurring motif in A Quiet Place. It opens in media res with a family – Dad (Krasinski, The Office), Mom (Blunt, Sicario), hearing-impaired daughter (Simmonds, Wonderstruck) and hearing son (Jupe, Wonder)- scavenging for supplies in an abandoned supermarket. It’s 89 days into the new world situation. The family tries to remain as silent as possible. They walk around barefoot, communicate by sign language and delicately take items from the shelves. The problem is that kids, by nature, are noisy. There’s a younger son (Woodward) who wants a battery-powered toy rocket. The father takes it away from him. The daughter secretly gives it back to the boy. The kid puts the batteries back in and turns it on while they’re walking home. The father tries to get to him, but doesn’t make it in time. It’s bye-bye for the little guy.
The story jumps ahead about a year. The family is still grieving for their deceased child. The daughter thinks her father blames her for what happened. He tries to be a good, supportive father, but she doesn’t believe it. It drives a wedge between the two. Mom is very pregnant. She could give birth at any time. This is especially difficult in a world where the slightest sound can get you killed. A soundproof room is being set up for the baby. One day, Dad takes his son into the woods to teach him survival skills. The daughter, angry that she wasn’t included, goes off to visit her brother’s gravesite. Mom is home alone when she starts to go into labor. She manages to keep it together until she steps on a nail. Noise is made and the predators come calling. Will they survive the night?
Krasinski, who also directs and co-writes, has come a long way as a filmmaker. I wasn’t a big fan of last year’s dysfunctional family comedy-drama The Hollars. If I’m being honest, I forgot all about it until I looked up Krasinski’s resume on IMDb. A Quiet Place is a HUGE step up. Horror isn’t the easiest genre. It’s one thing to startle audiences with sudden loud sounds or something suddenly jumping into the frame. It’s fun for a moment, but that’s it. It’s over, done with, onto the next “BOO!” moment. It’s quite another to unnerve viewers. It’s not enough just to engage the viewer; you have to get them invested in the characters AND the situation. You have to draw them in. The viewer must become an active participant in the game of terror not just a passive observer. A Quiet Place has its share of good “BOO!” scenes. It also succeeds in making the viewers feel unnerved. At times, the tension is so thick that you can cut it with a knife. Krasinski has created a truly frightening post-apocalyptic world where you literally have to watch your step (lest you step on a leaf or fallen branch).
A world like the one depicted in A Quiet Place is hard to imagine. We live in a noisy world. We are surrounded by sound. As I write this, I’m listening to music. And then there’s the talking. People talk and talk and talk. Many times, people talk over rather than with each other. We all have this unconscious need to fill the aural space around us. What would happen if we had to permanently put our lives on mute? What if it wasn’t safe to speak anymore? Krasinski almost perfectly realizes this in A Quiet Place. There’s almost no spoken dialogue. Krasinski relies on visual language instead to drive the narrative. For example, we find out what happened to the world we knew by way of newspaper headlines, missing person fliers and posted notices from the military telling the remaining survivors they’re on their own. We understand the tension between father and daughter by the intensity of their signing to each other. Krasinski also has an excellent sense of composition. Each shot is carefully crafted. He doesn’t fall back on cheap tricks like shaky camerawork to scare the viewer.
However, Krasinski makes one big creative misstep. Was it really necessary to include a score? I realize that the score is a big part of horror movies. It signals potential danger ahead. Normally, a good score works in the movie’s favor. A Quiet Place is not a normal situation. In a world without sound, any score would come across as intrusive. In a world where the inhabitants can’t warn each other of impending danger, it’s not fair the audience knows something is coming. If anything, it’s a crutch. Maybe the producers felt it would make A Quiet Place more commercial? I say Krasinski should have followed through with his concept and insisted on a score-free movie. The “BOO!” scenes would have been more effective than they already are.
Krasinski does succeed in another crucial area though. He gets great performances from his cast. He’s very good as the patriarch of the clan. It’s his job to protect and provide. He can’t get past failing to protect his youngest child so he’s determined to keep the others safe. Blunt, Krasinski’s wife in real life too, is also good as the mother with a reserve of strength she doesn’t know she has. Top honors go to Simmonds. She’s amazing as a child with an extra disadvantage. Because she can’t hear, there’s no way she can hear the aliens if they approach. There’s also no way for her to know if she accidentally makes a sound. Then, of course, there’s the usual young teen angst. She feels out of place in her family because of what happened to her baby brother.
A Quiet Place is a lean, mean monster movie with plenty of great jump-scares and a compelling storyline. This world is truly a frightening place. Krasinski gets all of this across without resorting to the usual crap- e.g. shaky camerawork, CGI, overediting- typically used by horror filmmakers. What’s even more impressive is that A Quiet Place is his first foray into the genre. The guy is a natural. He gets it. It doesn’t even matter that it’s rated PG-13. It doesn’t feel watered-down at all. It’s not just a scary movie, it’s a terrifying experience.
