by Beth
It sure is a good spring for movies.
While I missed out on Strangers: Prey at Night (or maybe not missed
if the reviews are anything to judge by), I did get to see Ready
Player One and A Quiet Place. There's also Super Troopers 2 (I know
it won't be as good as the original, but I still want to see it), and
Infinity War coming up. I'm sure I'll see Rampage at some point too,
but as much as I love disaster and monster movies it didn't look like
one I needed to see in the theater. But today I'm mainly hear to talk
about A Quiet Place.
After the overwhelming spectacle of
Ready Player One I was in the mood for something different and
creepy. Not only is this creepy, but it's a very different kind of
horror movie. You've probably already heard about how little dialogue
there is in this movie. That in itself makes in pretty different. But
not only is it low on the talking, it's pretty generally low on any
sound at all. If you haven't seen it yet I'll try to keep this
spoiler free. So if you don't already know here's the basics:
monsters that rely strictly on their hearing are wiping out the human
race. A family with a deaf daughter (which conveniently allows for
the whole family to communicate through sign language) is surviving
on their farm by making as little noise as possible to hide from the
3 monsters they know to be in their vicinity. After the family
encounters tragedy on their way home from a scavenging trip we jump
ahead a year to see that the mother is about to give birth. I can't
imagine why anyone would want to bring a baby into a world where you
get eaten for making noise, but I guess life has to go on. The
daughter is bravely trying to overcome her guilt over inadvertently
causing the tragedy, and her deteriorating relationship with her
father. The son is traumatized as well, and since he's younger than
the daughter is naturally frightened of his father's attempts to
teach him how to take care of himself in this terrifying world. The
rest of the movie is this plucky family just trying to survive, and
sometimes just barely doing so. You'll notice that I don't call any
of them by name, and that's simply because we aren't given any names.
There's no interaction with people outside of their home so no one
calls each other by name. You don't even know that the characters
have names until the end credits.
Besides the occasional screams of death
and terror most of the sound in this movie comes from the music.
Sometimes too much so. When your movie is almost completely free of
sound dramatic music kicking in can be a little jarring, and even a
subdued score seems like too much at times. Needless to say if you
see it in the theater you will hear every sniffling, coughing, and
popcorn crunching person around you. You could even hear explosions
and music from whatever movie was being shown in the theater next to
us. I almost think I would have liked it better at home. While it's
not a bad looking movie, there wasn't anything so visually
spectacular that would require you to see it on the big screen. If
you have a decent sized TV you could watch it with your lights out
and get the same effect with far more control over the ambient noise.
While the monsters aren't the most
amazing looking things I've ever seen they do look good, and work
well. The way their heads open up to amplify the sounds they're
seeking is particularly cool. The rural farm setting is unnerving in
it's unfamiliarity (since most of us didn't grow up on farms I would
assume this to be true for a lot of people), and in it's modifications to
allow the family to live mostly underneath their home. You can see
the signal fires of other survivors in the distance, but we
never meet any of those people so it's a very desolate feeling world
as well. There are a few requisite jump scares, but the majority of
the movie conveys a pretty strong feeling of relentless tension. It's
so quiet that whenever someone or something does make a noise you
feel your shoulders bunch up while you wait for the monster attack
that you know is coming.
This is not a movie for people who like
to talk while they watch something (thankfully there were none of
those people in the theater we were at). Nor is it a movie for people
who need to know such things as what the monsters are, how they got
here, and how the entire world fell apart so quickly. I read on IMDB
that there's a newspaper clipping in the father's radio room that
says something about a meteor hitting the earth, but I missed that little tidbit. In
the end, none of those things matter anyway because however it
happened all the family can do is deal with what's left to them and
try to live.
With summer blockbuster season and
it's many action movies quickly approaching you may also not see any
better acting than this for a long time. Unless you go in for big
budget dramas. I don't so this will probably hold true for me at
least. It's really impressive how much emotion and depth the actors
can portray without saying a word. John Krasinski is better than
I've ever seen here (I haven't really seen him in much outside of The
Office though), and Emily Blunt is also wonderful. Maybe it's because
they don't speak, but the child actors are also far less annoying
than I usually find them.
While there are no epic CGI battles,
cocky smugglers in outer space, or superhero teams to battle for the
fate of the world there is something unique and exciting about A
Quiet Place. I'll be seeing all of those other kinds of movies soon
enough, but for now it was nice to see something different and I'm
always satisfied when a horror movie can do something new.
Beth got her start writing for a site called Movie Criticism for the Retarded (which has been reborn as dorkdroppings.com. Check it out sometime), but was pulled out of an early retirement to write for Needless Things. When she isn't writing she plays video games and watches bad horror movies while eagerly awaiting the zombie apocalypse. She may try to save her husband and/or their cats, but luckily hasn't had to make those tough decisions yet. Follow beth0rama on Instagram or on Twitter @NeedlessBeth where she doesn't post often enough to be annoying, but updates way more than Google+
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