A true horror film doesn’t need to have blood and gore to be considered frightening. No, true horror attacks the senses and our basic human needs. Such was the case for A Quiet Place, a throwback sci-fi/horror film by writer/director John Krasinski. Warning, spoilers ahead…
Set in the year 2020, Earth has been overtaken by a race of extraterrestrials that hunt their prey based on sound. Here we meet the Abbott family, Lee (Krasinski), his wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt), daughter Regan who is deaf and their sons Marcus and Beau. They are out looking for supplies in a nearby deserted town where Beau finds a toy space shuttle that he wants but his father warns him that the toy is too loud and would attract the creatures. Lee takes out the batteries and places leaves the toy on the counter. Feeling bad for her brother, Regan returns the toy to Beau who takes the batteries without anyone seeing him. Later as the family crosses over a bridge to head home, Beau turns the toy on and before Lee could save his son, one of the creatures sprints out from the surrounding woods and kills the boy.
Fast forward over a year later and we see that Evelyn is now expecting a child. As Lee and Evelyn try to prepare for their new child, tensions between Lee and Regan grow. Regan is convinced that her father blames her for Beau’s death because she blames herself. Meanwhile Lee takes Marcus fishing to teach him how to provide for the family especially if something happens to him. As Regan goes to visit Beau’s grave site and Lee and Marcus are out fishing, Evelyn goes into labor. To make things matters worse, as she retreats to the basement she accidentally steps on a protruding nail on the step and the agonizing pain causes her to drop a picture frame crashing to the ground. The sound alerts one of the nearby creatures to enter the house. Evelyn warns her family by flipping a switch that changes the outdoor lights from white to red.
As Evelyn fights to remain silent, she struggles back up the stairs and into the bathroom. Seeing the warning red lights, Lee instructs Marcus to create a diversion using fireworks. As the fireworks go off, it masks Evelyn’s screams of pain. Lee races into the house with a shotgun to find his wife. He locates her and his their newborn son hiding in the bathroom. He carries both of them down the stairs and to a sound proof basement he had constructed for the baby.
Seeing the fireworks, Regan rushes back to the farm. She finds Marcus and together they hide atop a grain silo. When they light up a fire to alert their father of their whereabouts, Marcus falls into the silo and nearly suffocates into the sinking grain of corn. Regan jumps down to save him but the sounds alert the creature to attack them. Hiding under the fallen silo door, the children avoid being detected as Regan’s repaired cochlear impact emits a piercing sound that drives the creature away. Lee finds them and the three make their way back to the house.
Before they could reach the house, the creature returns and Lee attacks it but is injured. Seeing his father down, Marcus screams and draws the creature’s attention. In order to save his children, a wounded Lee gets up and using sign language, signs to his children that he loves them. He then begins to scream sacrificing himself as Regan and Marcus escape back to the house where they find their mother and the baby.
Having not been allowed in the basement before, Regan sees all of her father’s notes on the creatures and his implant experiments to help her improve her hearing ability. When the creature returns to the house and makes its way back the basement, Regan discovers that her cochlear implant much like it did at the silo gives off a piercing sound that disorient the creature. To boost the sound, she uses a nearby microphone to magnify it. As the creature struggles to regain its composure, it exposes the flesh beneath its armored head. Seizing the opportunity, Evelyn uses Lee’s shotgun to kill the creature. Seeing how vulnerable they now are to the sound, Evelyn instructs Regan to do it again as she reloads the shotgun… the end.
I must say, so far A Quiet Place is my favorite film of 2018 and while it may not stay at number one for the entire year, it would be difficult to knock it out of the top ten by years end. Go see it!
Directed by: John Krasinski
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe
PG13 90 Mins
A QUIET PLACE – **** (out of 5 stars)
May the Dork be with you,
JPB
The Dork Knight
