We went to the cinema for this on the strength of recommendations on Broken Forum and its high Rotten Tomatoes rating. Also, I suppose it’s amusing that it was made by the husband and wife team of John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. I expected it to be a horror film, but it’s also something of a science-fiction post-apocalyptic film. While it’s competently made and has a well developed atmosphere, it’s many flaws prevent me from being truly a fan.
In the near future, Earth has been devastated by powerful monsters that hunt using sound. The survivors have learned to live their entire lives quietly in order not to attract the attention of the monsters. Unfortunately it isn’t easy to impress this on children and during a foraging a family loses their youngest child who insist on playing with a noisy battery-powered toy. More than a year after this, the family of four consisting of the father, mother, son and daughter has settled on a routine on a farm and the mother is expecting another baby. Knowing the noise that a newborn baby would make, they have made special preparations for the event. One day the father takes the fearful son to the river to teach him how to catch fish and that the sound of the running water masks any noises they make. The daughter who is deaf wants to follow is turned down by the father, becomes upset and visits the grave of the deceased youngest child by herself. Just as she is left alone in the house, the mother’s water breaks and rushing about accidentally steps on a nail, making noise and consequently drawing in the monsters.
The opening scene of this film is exquisite and I love how it sets up loud noises as something to be feared. The need to avoid talking and the consequent use of hand signs and facial expressions to communicate helps create a tense and unique atmosphere. I also liked how there is no need to explain the monsters’ origins and that the story is set during a time when coping with their existence is an established fact of life. Unfortunately this is where the compliments end and the criticisms begin. One problem I have is how blatant and telegraphed Krasinski’s directing is. For example, he uses a nail sticking out of a piece of wood to create an anticipatory sense of fear as the audience sees it but the characters don’t. It does work but is so blatant about it that you are conscious of the director’s intention throughout the scene. The same goes for many other aspects such as the father needing to hammer home the message that he does indeed love the daughter. For a film that has quietness as its theme, A Quiet Place has a very irritating lack of subtlety.
My biggest problem however is that I can’t accept these monsters as a serious threat at all. However fast, strong or tough these creatures are, they are still biological organisms bound by the normal limits of physics. Combined with the fact that they appear to possess only an animal level of intelligence with no grasp of technology whatsoever plus how they hunt solely through sound, I find it totally implausible how they could ever pose an existential threat to humanity. Watching this, it struck me how Americans seem to prefer to use physical monsters in their horror, thinking perhaps that this groundedness provides a more visceral sense of danger. However in this case of a monster that responds aggressively only to loud noises, it would so much neater to have a more conceptual sort of monster that kills because it hates sound. I kept thinking to myself how cool it would be if a Japanese or Korean filmmaker ran with this concept instead. It really offends my sensibilities that in the end, this is still a monster that can killed with a shotgun. How very American!
Anyway this is still an entertaining piece of fluff with okay production values but I found its rave reviews to be overblown and I’m honestly puzzled over what sort of social commentary it’s supposed to be making. It’s not awful but it’s really far from anything great and calling it this year’s Get Out is really embarrassing.