Our first reaction when we heard about A Quiet Place was that it would be what happened when Michael Barrymore announced he was going to have another pool party. Thankfully we were wrong because A Quiet Place is quite possible one of the best scary thrillers we’ll see this year and is an extremely strong contender to be on our best films of the year list and it’s only just April!
Directed, starring and co written by John Krasinski it also stars his real, life wife Emily Blunt (The Girl on the Train) as Mum and Dad to a family of three. All quite normal except that they live in an America decimated by murderous monsters hiding in the landscape. Their weakness is that they are blind but have exceptional hearing forcing humans to live in silence unable to make any noise without risk of being located and torn apart by the monsters. It’s not wholly clear from the start why the five of them gingerly search a derelict chemist carefully treading about the shop acutely aware that they can only communicate by sign language as much as to communicate with their deaf daughter (Millicent Simmonds) as its is to avoid alerting the monsters. It’s this silence that lends the film a palpable sense of unease and Krasinski drops out the location sound track to show his daughter’s isolation and also her vulnerability when unable to hear if the monsters might be lurking.
A Quiet Place is a cinematic film in the true sense relying on pictures rather than words with an almost wordless script and the eerie quietness makes the occasional loud burst of sound a jump out of your chair shock. The family settle into a old isolated house and go about their business with an appropriately deathly silence but their predicament is inevitably about to become unavoidably dangerous as Blunt is heavily pregnant and only weeks away from giving birth to a baby. So when her waters burst its at the worst possible moment. It’s an almost unbearably tense set piece and is one of many that are brilliantly realised. The number of audience members with hands over their mouths was a sign of just how expertly Krasinski manipulates these moments yet there’s enough emotional moments in this to make to you genuinely concerned to the family’s welfare and safety.
Borrowing from films as varied as Paul Verhoeven‘s Starship Troopers & Witness this is still superbly orchestrated and easily stands on its own two feet. It’s a simple enough concept brilliantly executed that has an audience holding its breath and sustains tension for its 90 minutes and balances it shock and horror with a heartbreaking moment. A Quiet Place is a film to shout about and we absolutely loved it.
Here’s the trailer…….
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