REVIEW: ‘A Quiet Place’ is an original must-see
It’s aggressively suspenseful, original, “genre-bending” and captivating from start to finish.
The nearly silent film “A Quiet Place” has stirred up a whole new type of horror movie. And it’s one that is certainly worth seeing.
Real-life married couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt have beautiful and raw chemistry on screen as they deliver their most vulnerable performances fighting to protect themselves and their children from alien-like creatures that hunt by sound.
“If they hear you, they hunt you.”
The family takes extreme and creative measures to keep their lives entirely silent, as it is their only way to ensure survival.
The floors are mapped out to only step where the floors creak the least. No one wears shoes. Blunt even delivers a baby in nearly complete silence.
And they communicate entirely through sign language.
One of their children (Millicent Simmonds) is actually deaf. Her hearing aid proves to be of vital essence to the plot and almost feels like a character in itself.
Although the majority of the film is silent, it is focused heavily on sound.
Without filler background music and dialogue, the audience is forced to focus on what is really going on on screen.
There are subtitles to read since the dialogue is delivered primarily through sign language. There are also a lot of visual cues and communication via hand gestures and facial expressions, where if you weren’t fully paying attention at all times, you’d definitely miss what was happening.
Aside from the visual factors, there is also a focus on the natural sound.
You actually get to hear the wind blowing through the grass and the weight of each individual’s breathing, which is something we aren’t always completely enveloped with in most movies.
Director John Krasinski has created a horror movie that doesn’t just thrill us with the typical predictable jump scares.
“A Quiet Place” is one of those special movies that makes us react with our very primitive human emotions like love and anxious fear.
The movie is so tense from start to finish you really have no reason to want to look away for even a second.
Krasinski also does very well making sure “A Quiet Place” doesn’t become a Cloverfield movie.
For a moment, the movie may feel like it is traveling down that “aliens attacking during the fallout” genre, but don’t be fooled.
You will soon be thrown curveball after curveball and be left with a movie that is so intense from start to finish, it is almost dangerous.
Maria McGinnis is an entertainment reviewer. Contact her at [email protected].