A Quiet Place: a review

The best horror movies are built upon a foundation of atmosphere. They use imagery and sound to create a looming sense of dread instead of scaring you with presumably scary things. Fright stems from how the film makers want you to feel, as if the anticipation scares you more than the slashes, jumps and gore of a typical horror film.

A Quiet Place succeeds in weaving atmosphere into the fabric of their their story. It's not the scariest movie I've ever seen, it doesn't even rank in my top ten list of frightening films. Instead, it is the perfect horror film for people that don't enjoy scary movies. It is a stellar presentation from director John Krasinski, who teams up with Emily Blunt (his real-life wife) to craft a beautiful, heartbreaking, and terrifying tale. And it oozes atmosphere.

The story begins 89 days after a cataclysmic event. Lee (Krasinski) and Evelyn (Blunt) are survivors, trying to maintain their health and livelihood along with their three kids. They live in the near-future after earth has been taken over by blind monsters who hunt by sound. Silence is essential to their safety. It's like an episode of The Office (also starring Krasinski) where the employees of Dunder Mifflin are on their longest silent streak. Except, in A Quiet Place, the penalty for making noise is almost certain death.

courtesy NBC Universal

For protection, they use sand to pad every path they follow around their farm and into the nearby abandoned town. Everyone walks barefoot, they use soft surfaces to deaden sound, and sign language is the predominant form of communication. The family was already fluent in American sign language because their oldest child is deaf (a brilliant and emotional performance by Millicent Simmonds). Everything they do must be accomplished in complete silence, from praying as a family around the dinner table, to playing games of monopoly, to rummaging for antibiotics at an emptied pharmacy. To complicate their quiet existence, Evelyn is pregnant and quickly approaching her due date.

courtesy Paramount Pictures

Throughout A Quiet Place, the family lifestyle adds to the atmosphere. Every whispered line dialog and the hand motions Krasinski makes to hush his family generate tension. The pained facial expressions of fear, distress, agony, remorse, and sadness speak louder than any words ever spoken. Every sound effect will make you flinch, from a child brushing against stalks of corn while he runs, to the chitter of small woodland creatures, to the accidental sounds arising from careless movements. A Quiet Place is a very quiet movie. Aside from a lack of vocalized dialog, it keeps ambient noises and the music of a film score to a minimum, allowing for greater impact when the silence is broken.

Noiseless dead air would make most movies boring, however in A Quiet Place, the silences screams. I've never sat in an auditorium so hushed during a movie. The audience in my local theater had moved past the crumple of concession wrappers and crunch of popcorn within the first 15 minutes. No one sucked their soda cups dry. Everyone fought back against urges to cough or sneeze. By the movie's climax, we were all just as silent as the characters we watched, as if even the sound of pants textile against seat cushion when finding a more comfortable seating posture could ruin the movie for all in attendance.

courtesy Paramount Pictures

Any filmmaker who can elicit such a strong response from their audiences is a winner. Additionally, A Quiet Place wins for more than its creative use of silence and the pervasive accompanying creepiness. Yes, there are monsters (or aliens, maybe, the story isn't clear on the creatures' origins) and it is a tale of one family's semi-apocalyptic survival. It is also much more than a movie about beasts and human annihilation. The devastation that preceded the events of the movie are only a backdrop. The constant peril of hiding from deadly monsters is a mere plot device. These elements only serve to tell a bigger, and more important story.

A Quiet Place is about dealing with grief and guilt. It is about our fears of failure and our desire to leave behind a legacy. It is about improvising when the tools we need are unavailable and what we have is inadequate. It is about perseverance in all situations and determination when hope seems lost. It is about how families should function, to love, encourage, and support each other - even in the midst of tragedy, disaster, and emergencies. It is about how the things we do communicate love as much as the things we say. It is about the sacrifices parents make to raise their kids, to educate and mentor them, to provide for them, and keep them safe from harm.

More than anything, A Quiet Place achieves what rare few movies do, they remind us what it means to be human. In A Quiet Place, we discover humanity in a broken, messed up, and dangerous world. While real life isn't inhabited by creatures, part demogorgon and part Cloverfield monster, our world is broken, messed up, and dangerous. Perhaps the best way to navigate life is to love like Lee and Evelyn: deep, unwavering, relentless, and sacrificial.

This is a movie you should see - even if you don't like scary movies. Just make sure you're done eating your snacks by the end of the previews; once the feature presentation begins, you won't want to make a noise.

courtesy Paramount Pictures