A Quiet Place
(2018)If they hear you, they hunt you.
John Krasinski (The Office) directs, co-writes and stars alongside Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow) in this horror in which a family must stay silent to hide from deadly creatures that hunt by sound.... More
Set in the very near future, a rural American family has adapted to a world now inhabited by a plague of vicious killing machines that have brought down modern civilisation. Living their lives in near silence to escape detection by the monsters' super-hearing, parents and children struggle with domestic life as well as the need to remain human in the face of unstoppable creatures trying to snuff out their existence.Hide
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Directed by John Krasinski ('Brief Interviews with Hideous Men', 'The Hollars')
Starring John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds, Cade Woodward
Written by John Krasinski, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Flicks Review
BY Katie Parker Flicks Writer
Sound has always been an essential element of cinematic horror: a buzzing chainsaw; a creaky door; a humming, Edwardian child; what is heard is always more terrifying that what is seen, and, done right, what is not heard is scariest of all. A Quiet Place takes this to an extreme, setting itself in a world where survival is only possible in complete and utter silence.... More
Taking place in a not so distant future in which the world has been overrun by large, mysterious spider-like creatures that hunt via their excellent hearing, A Quiet Place follows a family of four as they attempt to live their lives without making a sound, a task made considerably more difficult by their soon-to-be-born third child.
Directed by and starring The Office alum John Krasinski alongside his real-life wife Emily Blunt, it is a subtle, simple story that wisely allows the concept to do most of the talking. With almost wordless performances, sound is used carefully, strategically and sometimes eschewed altogether for scenes from the perspective of the couple’s deaf teenage daughter (a part played with admirable intensity by deaf actress Millicent Simmonds, who taught the cast the sign language used throughout).
Coupled with a patient, lingering camera, some nicely restrained CGI, and naturalistic performances, the result is almost unbearable suspense whereby even scenes of total banality are permeated with creeping dread as we wait for the inevitable moments in which the silence is broken.
Like 2017’s much-lauded It Comes at Night, A Quiet Place seeks to examine the intimate domestic disasters caused by an apocalyptic global event. Unlike the former, however, it is with a kind of optimistic humanism that Krasinski approaches the survivalist narrative, something which, thankfully, saves it from becoming yet another ‘people are the real monsters’ flick. As a group of people struggling to repress something so instinctive and intuitive in times of distress, Krasinski, Blunt, and co. are most tested by finding ways to express their love for one another - a sentiment that pairs nicely with the gruesome violence constantly looming.
Of course it’s not perfect and, for all the care and subtlety put into the technical aspects of the film, Krasinski has a tendency to lay it on a little thick plot-wise: a father-daughter rift, a sticky-uppy floorboard nail, a big white board with maybe a few too many clues written on it, are all things that we could have done without.
As a cinematic experience A Quiet Place is more a physical than an intellectual one and, as is often the case with such things, once the tension wears off it is easy to nit-pick. Yet, as a simple, modern horror, A Quiet Place demonstrates a deft and canny ability to turn the minutiae of everyday monotony into the stuff of nightmares.Hide
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A Quiet Place
BY Barny lister
A Quite Place doesn't mess around. In the opening scene the table is set: scary monsters have taken over... More the world and are killing everyone, bummer. They may be blind but hunt aided by their scary ear thingys. So if you talk too loud, use cellphones or chew popcorn insistently, I will shush you - or get up and change seats and...um, where was I?
For a movie that's prominently dialogue free - the characters communicate with sign language - it is incredibly engaging as we follow the survival of a small family with another on the way. The soundproof nursery and method for keeping baby quite during the night is ingenious and will no doubt lead to copy-cat mishaps. Visually, the film is a knockout and thick with atmosphere and while I often find jump scares to be a cheap trick the inevitable moments that come in a film that's mostly quite, were logical, clever and got me reeeal good a couple of times.
Let's talk about the sound design. It was flippin' awesome, I never thought the noise of someone being ripped apart off screen could be so harrowing.
Howwwwwever A Quite Place didn't spook me the way The Witch or It Follows did, The suspense isn't really scary, instead we're treated to grim foreboding and escalating squirmy dread as the characters who for the most part have good heads on their shoulders (while they do) end up knocking over loud objects and stubbing toes.
I was into it though, and so was everyone else. I forgot about shushing anyone as the whole theatre broke into moments of collective "Oh Nose!" and frightened whispering time and time again.
Which made it all good fun. And that's what a horror movie should be.Hide
BY nloumachi grader
A beautifully directed and filmed, well-written film uplifted by gripping performances from its cast. If it had focused on the emotional aspect of its plot slightly more it'd be perfect. But it's a thought-provoking film none the less.
BY bunny lister
Very curious start, good storyline and overall very entertaining.
BY Michiyuki13 nobody
The plot, overall, is moderately good. Some character decisions are quite illogical, and there is a couple of plot... More holes.
As a massive fan of the horror genre, I would still recommend to give this movie a go.Hide
BY Stew_P wannabe
I really wanted to love this movie. Like, REALLY wanted to love it. I’d amped myself up for it & had had my belief it was going to be great confirmed by people who had seen it already.
Sigh. The movie’s not bad, it’s a solid scarer. But it’s not great & sadly had several gaping holes that left me underwhelmed. Again, this review is spoilery AF so don’t read on if you're fussed about that.
I’m not going to go over the... More basic set up much – insectoid creatures arrive on earth, they hunt by sound, gotta be quiet else they’ll get ya! The film starts on Day 89 of the… er… invasion I guess, with a family of five out scavenging for supplies. Little Jimmy, aged 4, doesn’t get the memo about being quiet & blasts off a very loud toy spaceship. Pa does his best to get to him but them insect aliens is fast & little Jimmy is quickly snatched up & (presumably) devoured. And there is my first issue with the film. A small child getting eaten should have had a big emotional hit but I felt… nothing. Because I didn’t know him. I didn’t know the family, I didn’t know what they’d been through to get to this point, there was not even a small amount of lead in to build a connection to this family. Backstory people, it matters.
Skip forward to day 470-odd. Pa does his best to teach the kids how to survive… quietly, while Ma contemplates how she is going to squeeze out a sprog… quietly. Down in the basement Pa is trying to fix his daughter’s cochlear implant & also figure out how to kill the beasties. There is a whiteboard with several notes – BLIND, ARMOUR, WHAT IS THEIR WEAKNESS?? And this is where the holes just open up for me.
1. In the opening scene we glimpse a newspaper headline announcing, ‘IT’S SOUND!!!’. Aha! We’ve discovered how they’re hunting us! Presumably at this point humanity still had the structure in place to write, print & deliver a newspaper. And yet, having come to the conclusion that a creature that relies on sound to hunt, is sensitive to even the most subtle sound, we haven’t figured out that they could be hurt, could be incapacitated by too much sound? Or if we have figured that out, that there is not enough infrastructure around to actually do something with that information? (Remember, we can still write, print & deliver a newspaper). I’m not a smart man Jenny, but I know that it hurts when I turn my headphones up too loud. It seems unlikely no clever-Richard came up with the idea that we could go all Spinal Tap on them? Turn a few amps up to 11, sort out a little feedback & see how they like that?
2. The bugs are armoured, this is true. It’s hinted at that this makes them near indestructible. And yet Ma manages to bring one down no problem with a shotgun blast to the face. A shotgun at close range is pretty effective, sure. Know what else is effective – big nasty machine guns. If a shotgun can bring one down I’m pretty sure a heavy machine gun is going to be able to manage the job. Not sure if everyone is aware but the worlds military establishments have lots of guns. Yes guns are noisy but this leads into...
3. The creatures are blind. Along with their sensitivity to sound that seems like a big weakness to me. If they’re blind they should be pretty easy to entice into a trap. Make a big noise, draw them into an area surrounded by heavily armed dudes and blammo. Sure the guns will attract more of them but there was no indication in the film that the numbers of these things were insurmountable. Humanity wasn’t overrun, just outclassed. We could even avoid having people there at all. There is no indication that these bad-boys can fly & we have some fairly formidable attack helicopters, not to mention, I dunno, drones. We could be taking them out from the air fairly easily.
Sigh again. I know I've put too much thought into this. I know it doesn't matter that much. It’s just a shame these holes spoiled the film for me because there is a lot to like. The premise is great & the monsters themselves look awesome. There are a good number of jump-scares & even better, the tension is ratcheted up nicely throughout the film. It just feels like a bit of polishing could have made this film the great piece of entertainment I was hoping for.Hide
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The Press Reviews
One of the most inventive, emotional, and terrifying films I've seen ... Full Review
Even moviegoers who don't accept the metaphor are going to have the pants scared off them. Full Review
Sometimes, getting on the clever/whatever wavelength of a horror film and just rolling with can be a part of the fun. "A Quiet Place" is that kind of movie. Full Review
Though it's Krasinski's third time in the director's chair, it's his first home run thanks, in no small part, to the film's emphasis on family and Krasinski's choice of leading lady-his wife and mother of his two children, Emily Blunt. Full Review
A bravura monster movie which just doesn't let up, ratcheting tension with nary a word uttered on screen. Full Review
Cloverfield meets The Walking Dead and makes for a very enjoyable tiptoeing scare fest at the cinema. Full Review
Rallies a cry for intimate originality in film which has long been muted by bloated blockbusters and tiresome, unfulfilling sequels. Full Review
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