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A Quiet Place Movie Review

A Quiet Place is a 2018 horror film directed by John Krasinski and starring himself opposite his real life wife Emily Blunt. It is one of the year’s finest films.

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“Who are we if we can’t protect them?

We have to protect them“

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It follows a post-apocalyptic family who needs to stay quiet every single day as the aliens who hunt by sound surround their house. This is honestly an extremely authentic, brilliant idea that was mostly flawlessly executed leading to such an outstanding, original film and the fact that we got such originality in 2018 no less is astounding and needs to be appreciated, though I could definitely see the ‘Signs’ influence in certain scenes.

So the film is basically a silent film when it comes to dialogue as for the majority of time the family members do not talk at all. But the sound design is amazing and they perfectly use sign language here along with the hearing device and, yes, the fact that they turned that device into a weapon was a genius idea. The film is about fighting your fears and using your biggest fear to fight which was wonderful to witness.

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I did find the first half of the film, mostly the first act, rather slow at times and uneventful. It was a necessary, but still not investing build up. But that all changed with the second half which hooks you in and lever lets go with a terrifying scene after another and superbly executed action sequences. It truly has clever action for a horror film.

Emily Blunt is a great actress and her performance here is reliably fantastic, but this is a different role for her as she has to rely on facial expressions throughout the whole runtime and she excelled beautifully at those. It was a very difficult role with the pregnancy in particular, but she admirably pulled it off and is the best part of the film in terms of the acting.

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But in terms of the characters, Lee and Regan are the heart and soul of the film. Marcus and Evelyn are fine, but these two are the real stars. They actually managed to include a troubled father-daughter relationship into the mix and they played it off as important to the story and the eventual conclusion beautifully. It thus managed to be a moving drama as well as a horror flick. John Krasinski is surprisingly good here whereas Millicent Simmonds is stupendous too and the fact that they cast a deaf girl in real life to play a deaf character is rather admirable.

A Quiet Place does have a couple of plot holes here and there, but for the most part it’s pretty easy to buy into as the filmmakers definitely thought almost about everything and thus created a believable post-apocalyptic world and plausible situations. I truly admired the attention to detail that went into this production as it’s rather meticulous, especially for this genre. The direction from John Krasinski is phenomenal and he’s the reason why this film works so well, and this ought to propel his career as a director much further.

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The pacing is also effective as it’s very economic despite that slow first act. The film flies by how fun and intense it is while also having an effectively short runtime of just eighty minutes. The film manages to be immensely scary at times and the fact that they pulled off the look of the alien so well despite such a small budget is honestly baffling to me. The design is rather original with the ears, the behavior of the creature is intriguing and the VFX are splendid. One of my favorite scenes is the silos sequence along with the death scene which is heartbreaking as well as a smart ending and frightening child birth.

With effectively short runtime and economic pacing, truly impressive, bafflingly amazing VFX for such a small budget, interestingly designed aliens who behave intriguingly and terrific performances across the board with the highlight expectedly being Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place also features a great father-daughter relationship which is the heart and soul of the film along with many memorable, highly intense sequences. It has a winning, incredibly original premise so well utilized as it’s one of the most authentic cinematic experiences of the decade. A Quiet Place isn’t perfect, but it surely is a daring, admirable horror achievement that ranks among the best genre films ever made.