Shhh…be vewy quiet, they’re hunting humans.
I’m a sucker for eye-catching horror film trailers. I see one with an intriguing setting and/or unique monster (or better yet, a monster that remains unseen), and you’ve caught me hook line and sinker. A Quiet Place is just that: an intriguing setting with a unique monster.
The film takes place after a monstrous predatory species has hunted and wiped out most of humanity. The creatures are large, primitive beasts with impenetrable armor surrounding their bodies, making it impossible to kill them through conventional means. The creatures, however, lack sight and smell, making sound the only way for them to hunt. The film follows the Abbott family—father Lee (John Krasinski), mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt), daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and son Marcus (Noah Jupe)—who recently lost their youngest to the beasts. The family has seemingly survived thanks to their isolated farm in the woods and daughter being deaf—making their previous knowledge of Sign Language a vital tool for non-verbally communicating. Lee has figured out that three of the creatures live in their vicinity and sends daily SOS Morris codes through his radio system. With Evelyn pregnant and close to labor, the Abbott family must find a way to effectively deliver the baby without attracting the creatures.
MAJOR SPOILERS ONWARD:
A Quiet Place’s gimmick is its use of dialogue, or, more specifically, its lack thereof. The characters do talk, but (for understandable reasoning) it's minimal and, at times, so faint it's inaudible. A Quiet Place, instead, relies heavily on its visuals to tell its story. Lee’s workroom consists of newspaper clippings of events before the film’s start—what happened, how it got to such situation, etc.—a whiteboard with big, bold words stating the creatures’s main attributes, and an emphasized “weakness?” at the bottom, indicating they’ve yet to figure out how to stop them (as well as setting off a Chekhov’s Gun) all without saying a word. I love the scene where Lee makes a signal fire on top of his silo—a good lookout view of the farm—resulting in distant fires being set in response. The scene cunningly showcases there are other people still alive—avoiding the “Last Family on Earth” scenario—it’s just that the Abbotts can’t interact with them due to the dire situation (every man, woman, and family for themselves).
Some of the film’s best usage of atmosphere building is the lighting system surrounding the Abbott’s farm. The lights serve as a useful way of illuminating the area at night and can be turned red to alert the other family members that the creatures are nearby. Yet the red lights also serve as a tone-setter—increasing the tension and dread as family members see and/or are engulfed by the ominous glow. The creatures themselves are terrifying creations—beasts with Venom-like grins and appendages that can rip through steel and climb any surface. The beasts’s most imaginative feature is their armor plating that can lift up to use their hypersensitive eardrums to hear even the slightest noises. A chilling scene involves a creature submerging itself under water as Evelyn wades through the same murky pool to rescue her newborn son.
The film effectively uses sound, and the lack thereof, to build tension. The slightest noises become terrifying to hear as the viewer knows what it can summon. I think the entire audience felt the visible pain and absolute agony Evelyn was going through after stepping barefoot on a nail while going into labor and being unable to make a single peep. My wife noted how the audience (including she and I) were essentially making the pain noises for her. Yet sound also works towards the Abbott’s advantage—utilizing louder sounds such as waterfalls and fireworks to distract and/or cover their own noises.
I do have a few gripes with A Quiet Place. For one, the characters get awfully lucky at times, such as how Evelyn’s labor is notably brief and how the newborn is relatively quiet until they just barely reach safety. For a species that can easily rip through steel, one creature certainly has trouble ripping into a beat-up pickup truck’s roof to reach its prey. The film drags out the characters realizing the creatures’s weakness—even overemphasizing it to the viewers (via the whiteboard)—long after we’ve figured it out. I also believe it was a mistake revealing the film’s date and days since the creatures arrived—eliminating viewer interpretation and examination of clues upon rewatching. While A Quiet Place does live up to its premise, I won’t say it surpasses expectations. A Quiet Place didn’t turn out to be the next It Follows as I was subtly hoping for, but it still delivers what it promises and does a solid, engaging job at that.