MOVIE REVIEW – Surviving an attack of deadly, cruel, violent and extremely fast creatures is very easy, you just need to follow certain rules: 1. Do not make noise 2. Do not get out of the way 3. Red means run. With those 3 simple rules you can survive the most violent and deadliest attack that stalks any species on the planet, or that is what the film A Quiet Place proposes an exciting psychological thriller full of horror and drama that takes us to an apocalyptic world where monsters are terrorizing the survivors.

 

Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and Lee (John Krasinski) Abbott are a couple with three children who live an isolated farm of all civilization north of New York. This family has survived for months in a world invaded and threatened by deadly extraterrestrial creatures that are guided by sound to hunt. In this context in which a word can mean death, the Abbott family lives silently, walk barefoot and communicate through sign language.

Elements combined

For a horror movie as efficient as A quiet place to see the light, many elements have to be combined. One of the most basic is creative freedom: the thinking mind behind the project must be very clear what you want to tell and John Krasinski has tied everything very well, taking care of the production, the direction, the script (co-written with Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) and even one of the main roles of the film.

The result is an honest film, concrete and apparently small, with few characters, few locations and perfect duration (blessed 95 minutes, in which an outstanding cinematographic experience is condensed).

Family affair

Without revealing anything fundamental about the plot, we will tell you that in A Quiet Place we meet a family that lives in the forest, taking care not to emit any loud noise. The reason is that they are haunted by beings who are attracted to the noise.

It is a large family composed of marriage (John Krasinski and Emily Blunt) and three children, which makes the task of going unnoticed especially complicated. You have to add the extra that the older sister, Reagan (Millicent Simmonds), is deaf and her hearing aid is broken, which means that sometimes she does not know what is happening around her and, worse, she is not aware of the noise herself.

In addition to having a very accurate vision, you have to know how to tell the story of fear with rhythm and tension so that the viewer does not get lost or get away (especially when special effects are very relevant at specific moments). This film does not let up and plays brilliantly with the expectations of the audience.

Moreover, also essential is that the cast is up to par. Emily Blunt and John Krasinski himself do an excellent job, but they are lagging behind Millicent Simmonds (Wonderstruck) and Noah Jupe (Wonder). The young actress is deaf in real life, which brings a great plus to her character, very credible.

Silence

In A Quiet Place so important are the sounds, such as whispers and silences and, above all, the point of view that the narrative is adopting: sometimes we perceive what happens through Reagan, staying blank, while other times we have the perception of the listeners, who have developed a whole system of tricks to go unnoticed, alert, communicate with each others, etc. It would have been easy to get carried away by the common places in the very fertile field of the post-apocalyptic worlds, but the movie stays original: it is emotional when it is needed, terrifying when at the perfect moment and it touches and it is mysterious enough to keep us thrilled.

The devil is in the details, and this horror movie is full of them. With great skill, also, the script allows the viewer to anticipate what is going to happen by successfully developing suspense micro sequences that are dressed with scares that make you jump in the chair. In this sense the movie is similar to Do not breathe, you also know how to exploit the soundtrack and spaces with precision (in passing we remind you that there will be a sequel to No respires).

John Krasinski performs an outstanding exercise with this film which is very solid and it lasts exactly what is necessary and that has an end as efficient as all the footage.

-BadSector-