Set in a world that has been taken over by horrifying creatures, a family must now live in a world of silence in order to survive. Every day, a husband and wife live in fear that they will be unable to protect their children.
A Quiet Place is easily one of the most intense, heart-pounding, and terrifying horror films I’ve seen in a long time. Despite being a monster film, it’s an extremely fresh film. Most of the family is completely silent except for slight whispers you may hear from the characters. And the silence is what really escalates the horror. The slightest sounds that the character might or do make is enough to make you tense up and your heart jump into your throat and hold your breath. The scare/jump scenes that occur are so well-executed and go very much hand-in-hand with the intensity built up to them. What really helps build up the fear as well is how much you feel attached to the family and care about them. And of course the creatures themselves are pretty damn horrific.
For the most part there a very few calm moments and any that do come about exist to not only give us some emotional development between the characters, but also for the audience to finally catch their breath. For most of the film I was holding my breath, clenching my fists, or putting my hand over my mouth. When a film can emit that big of a reaction out of me (something that rarely happens), it’s one that is clearly doing something right. Apart from the horror elements, we also have a great family drama with plenty of emotional depth involved. This movie does bare some similarities to the movie Signs in how it combines a solid horror with family drama. There are some other elements that are similar to Signs, but I won’t reveal those here. This isn’t to say that this is a negative, but it is a thought came to mind. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the performances in this movie are fantastic all across the board. Each actor delivers their own personal and outstanding performances with no one person standing out more than the other. However, real life couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt projects their romance on-screen with their fantastic chemistry. Okay, I do have to say that I’ll give Emily Blunt the torch for the best performance of the film. She brings forth a grand amount of emotion and fear in her role that stole the show. Millicent Simmonds (who is actually deaf in real life) turns an extremely excellent breakthrough performance as the couple’s oldest child.
I couldn’t recommend this fantastic horror movie more. It’s scary, fresh, and offers some solid drama and fantastic performances.
–Cody Landman
