A Quiet Place (2018)

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I still recall this coming out at an interesting time. The previous year, we had Jordan Peele of 'Key & Peele' directing an instant classic in horror called 'Get Out', and as time has passed, that movie can kind of speak for itself. Even in ignoring all the Oscar hype behind it, everyone talked about it. Considering 'A Quiet Place' was helmed by comedic actor John Krasinski, I had similar predictions for it. To some degree that came true, considering its sequels. But I may argue that this original film works best as a stand-alone.

This one acts quite a bit similar to something like 'The Matrix' in that regard. The first title is pretty much gold, but the sequels leave more to be desired. More on those with those reviews, but I can remember feeling a certain intensity in the theatre when I caught this that has been pretty hard to match since. It's a film that does very well with keeping the suspense going, and the sheer silence of everything makes it all that much more eerie. And when the jump scares finally do come, they work out pretty well for the most part, not being so cheap in their executions.

Sometime in the near future, things have been taken over by strange creatures. Monsters that would give your typical zombies a real run for their money. They are never really explained and wrapped in mystery, but they're nasty as hell. As for their look, they sort of remind me of a miniature 'Cloverfield' Monster. They're closer to human-size, although bigger, and much faster. These creatures hunt by using sound, which means that if you want to stay alive in this world, you can't make any, and I mean ANY of it. The protagonist family of the film even paints marks on the floor that don't creek so they can walk safely.

Said family of five are the Abbots, who are trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic creature-run world. While Krasinski portrays the father, Lee, his real-life wife, Emily Blunt portrays his on-screen wife, Evelyn. Along with them is their three children; Beau (Cade Woodward), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and deaf daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds). Being deaf in real life, Simmonds also adds some authenticity to her role. Having said that, the character is a little bit of a brat, and not exactly the most likeable character in the family, despite the plot focusing on her a lot.

This was one of those great turnaround horror movies for its time, giving us something that wasn't one of four extremely common things; ghosts, demons, found footage or home invasion. We have something nice and original here that, quite frankly surprises me hasn't been done before. I mean, the ultimate way to make your movie suspenseful, in my opinion, would be to make it a very quiet movie with those jump scares just lingering around the corner, but not necessarily happening, or happening when you don't expect it. For the most part, this movie nails that idea, so in many ways, this one is right up my alley.

I have to say, the suspense throughout the film works incredibly well when we start to get to know and care about these characters. It kinda reminds me of a good episode of 'Walking Dead' where we focus more on the developing characters, but that threat is always there. What adds to this, though, is the need to be silent at all times, which brings it to another level. I mean, silence is required in 'Walking Dead' as well, but they can at least talk without having to use sign language. Here, well, the movie has it's title for a good reason.

This follows in the footsteps of 2017's 'Get Out', and the trend is carried on with 2018's 'Halloween', in that they were created from comedic minds who seem to understand that there's some unexplored territory in horror. In their own rights, all three of these titles boast original horror movie ideas that dare to stray away from the typical (even the first of the new 'Halloween' trilogy had something to it, even though we knew we've seen it all before). The trend seems to have died off a little bit, but I would still be curious to see whose comedic mind could come up with what for horror in the near future.

4/5 

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