A QUIET PLACE (2018)

Studio:       Paramount Pictures
Director:    John Krasinski
Writer:       Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, John Krasinski
Producer:  Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller
Stars:     Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward, Leon Russom

Review Score:

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Summary:

An isolated family struggles to survive in silence against a devastated landscape overrun by creatures attracted to sound.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Day 89 – With the world ravaged by blind creatures that attack based on sound, Lee Abbott and his wife Evelyn, along with their deaf daughter Regan, oldest son Marcus, and young son Beau, scavenge an abandoned pharmacy in Little Falls for supplies. Lee warns Beau that he cannot take an electronic space shuttle toy because of the noise it makes. To make her brother happy, Regan secretly gives Beau the toy with its batteries removed. Unbeknownst to Regan, Beau pockets the batteries.

Beau activates the space shuttle toy while the family walks barefoot back to their remote farmhouse. Lee is too late to save Beau when a creature attacks and kills him on a bridge.

Day 472 – With Evelyn now pregnant, the Abbotts continue surviving in silent isolation. A creature nearly attacks the family when an oil lamp is knocked over during a game of Monopoly, but it kills a raccoon instead. Lee continues work on a new hearing aid for Regan before sharing a moment with Evelyn.

Day 473 – Lee reminds Regan that she isn’t allowed in the basement. Claiming that they never work anyway, Regan initially refuses Lee’s latest hearing aid, but ultimately begins wearing it. Tension between father and daughter continues to grow with Regan believing that Lee blames her for Beau’s death.

Regan is disappointed when Lee takes Marcus with him to check his fish traps in a stream. Drowned out by a roaring waterfall, Marcus and his father discuss Lee and Regan’s shared guilt over Beau’s death.

Regan goes alone to the bridge where Beau died and places the space shuttle toy as she mourns. Back at the house, Evelyn unknowingly pulls up an exposed nail on the basement staircase.

Lee and Marcus encounter a man in the woods mourning his dead wife. The man summons monsters by screaming in order to commit suicide. Lee and Marcus run while the man is killed.

Evelyn’s water breaks. Evelyn painfully slashes her foot on the nail while moving downstairs. Evelyn turns on red exterior lights to warn Lee of danger as a creature infiltrates the house. Lee and Marcus race toward the house while Evelyn uses an egg timer as a distraction to get away from the creature.

Lee instructs Marcus to remain in the fields and set off fireworks as a distraction so that Evelyn can give birth. Lee rushes to his wife after arming himself with a shotgun. Marcus’ fireworks go off in time to drown out the sound of Evelyn screaming as she gives birth in a bathtub. Lee and Evelyn take the crying baby into a soundproofed room underneath their barn.

Marcus remains caught in a cornfield alone and scared. Marcus knocks himself down while fleeing from a monster.

Regan rushes back to the house when she sees the fireworks. A creature stalks Regan, but unexpected feedback caused by the proximity of her hearing aid causes it to retreat.

Lee and Evelyn take a moment to reflect on Beau in light of their new child. Evelyn has Lee promise to always protect their children as Lee returns outside to search for Marcus and Regan. Lee doesn’t notice the room beginning to flood on his way out.

Marcus and Regan reunite in the cornfield. They set a fire signal atop a silo to summon their father for help, although Regan doesn’t believe Lee will come for her.

A creature stalks Evelyn and her baby as the underground chamber continues flooding. The monster eventually becomes distracted by the sound of Marcus falling through the silo roof outside.

Regan jumps down into the silo to rescue her brother, but is swallowed by the corn supply. Marcus ends up saving his sister.

The creature comes for the children, but the painful feedback from Regan’s hearing aid repels it. Lee arrives in time to help his kids escape to a nearby car while he fights the monster.

The children create a commotion to draw the creature toward the car and away from their father. Lee recognizes the peril facing Marcus and Regan. Lee signs “I love you” to his daughter before screaming, sacrificing himself so his children can escape.

Marcus and Regan regroup with Evelyn in the house’s basement. Regan sees her father’s hearing aid workstation and finally concludes that the device’s sonic signal weakens the monsters. Although it causes her intense pain, Regan amplifies the feedback using a radio to stun a creature that infiltrates the basement. Evelyn kills the monster with a shotgun blast.

The creature’s death summons a monster horde to the house. Evelyn and Regan share a knowing look as Regan raises the volume on stereo speakers and Evelyn pumps her shotgun.

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Review:

While walking up to the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas for the SXSW premiere of “A Quiet Place,” I overheard more than one shout of, “it’s Jim from ‘The Office’!” directed toward the media mobbed step-and-repeat.  For those who still can’t shake their association of John Krasinski with a comedic character he previously played on TV, “A Quiet Place” exists to reshape the predominant perception of him into that of a creatively confident director armed with a full battery of accomplished filmmaking skills.

Krasinski claimed, “I’ve never been a genre guy” in front of the debut screening’s audience, although you’d never guess it if he didn’t say it.  Hoity-toity horror fans may dismiss the movie on the grounds of it being a polished Paramount Pictures production manufactured and marketed for multiplex mass consumption.  But “A Quiet Place’s” uncomplicated premise unshackles it to impress as a smartly crafted, slickly executed crowd-pleaser packed with straight shooting suspense and terrifically terrifying thrills.

The simple setup starts in 2020 and takes place across just three days.  The days aren’t consecutive though.  Three months into an apocalyptic event that has blind creatures savagely slaughtering anyone making any noise above a whisper, tragedy befalls Lee and Evelyn Abbott when their number of children unexpectedly reduces by one.

Fast-forward about three years.  Evelyn has a new baby about to burst from her belly.  This isn’t a time for celebration however.  This is a time for survival, which Lee and Evelyn have become accustomed to doing with their deaf daughter Regan and young son Marcus on the isolated farm where they subsist in strict silence.  Events over the next 48 hours put their hard fought skills and close-knit bonds in a pressure cooker, as the creatures threaten to tear apart the Abbott family figuratively before doing it literally.

I generally loath this kind of comparison, but “A Quiet Place” is to a ‘predator stalking prey’ plot what “The Strangers” (review here) is to home invasion horror.  By that I mean the movie presents its particular template using streamlined staging to emerge as an exemplary achievement in its specific subgenre.  It may not be revelatory, but applying fresh takes to familiar formulas makes for stylishly cinematic storytelling.

Kinetic chills consist almost entirely of jump scares, yet each one comes from an authentic action as opposed to a sudden hand on a shoulder or cat springing from a shadow.  The very nature of unseen creatures attacking without warning lays the foundation for organically grown frights.  They work a seesaw with deep character development to compellingly exploit emotional investment in tandem with sudden shocks.

Anxiety-choked atmosphere complements visceral jolts.  While moments categorized above are designed to catch the audience off guard, camera positions cleverly set other stages so viewers can breathlessly anticipate dangers that characters cannot see.  This turns on a second tract of highly effective suspense for maximizing audience engagement.

Throughout everything, Marco Beltrami’s pulse-pounding score earns a guilty verdict for relying heavily on the type of low bass “bwaaah!” stings heard in every horror movie trailer.  At the same time, it’s impossible to argue that Beltrami’s music isn’t appropriately employed to wring every last drop of auditory ambiance from each scene.

Respecting its material as more meaningful than mere motivation for monster mayhem allows “A Quiet Place” to mine underlying maturity.  Themes of strained interpersonal relationships and parental fears nestle comfortably around action without feeling forced or false.  Not only does co-writer and director John Krasinski demonstrate his talent for tuning tone, but his experience as an actor primes him to precisely adjust each emotional dial with carefully measured performances.

Despite being tasked to convey almost all information using physicality and sign language, the core cast never overcompensates for their lack of dialogue.  As evidenced in “Mute” (review here), it can be tempting for a silent actor to lean too much on unbelievably elastic mouths or cartoonishly popping eyeballs.  No one does that here.  Emily Blunt in particular stands out with her incredible ability to convey exhaustion, desperation, resilience, or affection using only subtle alterations to her expression.  Through the collective acting of Blunt, Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe, the audience genuinely comes to both care for and fear for their fictional family.

“A Quiet Place” has broad appeal as a contemporary creature feature that would play perfectly at a drive-in, except with sincere family drama that similar films in previous eras didn’t possess.  Strong in story, direction, characterization, and suspense, the film qualifies to compete with the best hold-your-breath thrillers on the basis of pure entertainment value alone.

Review Score:  90

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