Review: A Quiet Place

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Making great use of both sound and the lack of it, actor-director John Krasinski makes a surprisingly strong bid to become one of the new voices of horror with "A Quiet Place," a nerve shredding exercise that manages to tell a wonderfully hair raising story with virtually no dialogue.

The film is yet another in a long line of post-apocalyptic films in which the survivors of some type of fallout - in this case, the takeover of Earth by large, monstrous creatures that are blind, but have advanced hearing and, therefore, hunt by sound - attempt to survive. But while the setup is cliched, the execution is anything but.

Krasinski plays the patriarch of a family hiding out in a somewhat sound-proofed house in the middle of nowhere. Only one other human is seeing during the entire course of the picture other than the family. The picture opens with a tragedy. Krasinski's Lee and his wife, Evelyn (played by his actual wife, Emily Blunt), are making a trip to an abandoned supermarket with their three children - Marcus (Noah Jupe), Beau (Cade Woodward) and Regan (Millicent Simmonds), who is mostly deaf.

Beau wants to take a toy airplane from the shop, but once his parents recognize that it is battery operated and, therefore, prone to make sound, they gently tell him no. But Regan feels sympathy for her brother, snatches the toy and gives it to him. On their trek back home, Beau turns on the airplane and is quickly snatched away by one of the film's creatures.

Months later, the family is going about its routine, but Evelyn is once again pregnant. This was my one bone to pick with the film. If the family's survival is incumbent upon their remaining quiet, why would Lee and Evelyn decide to bring another child - whose noise levels cannot likely be contained - into their home? It would seem that this plot thread was included in the film for the purpose of creating tension once the baby is born - which it does.

The most remarkable aspect of "A Quiet Place" is how well it utilizes silence and the occasional sound. By the picture's midway point, the audience has become so accustomed to the silence that whenever a sound is made - especially by the film's human characters - it is jarring and causes the heart to pound. Every time a noise sneaks in, we have to wonder whether it will draw the attention of the creatures.

For a movie in which dialogue is so scarce, it's also a wonder that the film's characters feel so fleshed out and that we can relate to them. Regan feels guilt over her brother's death and sees herself as the family's outcast. Marcus wants to be more courageous, while Evelyn and Lee wrestle with the fact that they might not be able to adequately protect their children. There was at least one sequence late in the film that drew an emotional response from the audience with which I saw the movie. This speaks to Krasinski's skills as a director and the cast's talents.

"A Quiet Place" struck me as a film that could become a sleeper hit - and it would be warranted. This is a clever, very well made, often excruciatingly intense and emotionally resonant horror movie. It also has one of the best final shots in a horror film in recent memory. Krasinki's previous work behind the camera would not have suggested that he'd be an adept horror filmmaker, so "A Quiet Place" is a genuine surprise and an indicator that the actor-director can be added to the roster of filmmakers who make smart, thoughtful movies that transcend their genres. For a film that often borders on being a silent movie, "A Quiet Place" is a scream.