A Quiet Place is directed by John Krasinski and it stars him and his real wife Emily Blunt. It also stars Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. If you are reading this to see what happens I highly suggest you stop because this is a movie you need to watch blindly. So if I haven’t made it clear enough and for some reason you can’t see the title, SPOILERS AHEAD!
So the film begins with an excellent sequence where it brilliantly sets the tone of the movie. The family is taking stuff from an abandoned shop and they clearly can’t make a sound. Now in this scene, Evelyn (Blunt) gives some pills to her sick son. This is never again mentioned to my knowledge. It was just there, he takes the pills and he’s fine so they worked but maybe it was an excuse to get the family into a shop. The scene with the kid and the rocket which he lights up happens I believe 5-6 minutes in approximately. It was the perfect setup to establish the rules. It established why you can’t make sound, how fast the monsters are and how cruel and violent they are. Now this was one of the dumb decisions I was talking about but it had to happen. Regan blames herself because she gave him the toy back and to some extent it was her fault I mean the kid did get the batteries and turned it on also he was last in line which also makes it the parent’s fault as well. You could say everyone participated. Now the sound was utilized brilliantly, when the monster attacked it was frightening and it wasn’t a jump scare, we all saw it coming.
I love how emotional this movie was, when you see them living their miserable life on the farm, you feel for them instantly. They are used to their life but every time something makes a sound they’re still terrified. One of my favorite reactions was when Marcus (Jupe) knocks over a lantern and you see Evelyn’s face. The expression she gives is so sad, it’s sad because she literally doesn’t know what to do, she’s frightened yes but she’s also tired of this and she’s mad because of the miserable life, they’re leading.. All of that from a single expression on her face. Emily Blunt is truly one the greatest actresses working today.
What I love about this movie is how mysterious it is. It never shows you how they ended up in this situation, when it happened or even what year it is. *Actually I looked it up it’s the year 2020. Nowadays movies tend to tell us everything from A to Z which is tiring. Less is more in this case the more you don’t know the scarier and more intense it is! It’s intriguing for sure, to find out how this happened to the world or where the creatures come from but they left all of that to your imagination which is great because everyone has a different theory, it keeps you thinking.
Like 30 minutes in there is the waterfall scene which is yet another great scene which establishes what you can and can’t do in that world. It was also a touching moment which this movie has plenty to offer. The first half of this movie definitely takes it’s time but it is never boring. As I said in my non-spoiler review it always keeps you on edge. The first half does an excellent job at setting up the second half with events. It sets up the pieces so they can fall later on. One example of this is the nail. That damn nail is now a horror icon on it’s on. Every time it appears you cringe automatically. Although it’s a great plot device it could’ve been easily avoided but then again it’s a horror movie. I love how the pregnancy happened so early on, it happens exactly in the middle of the movie. I was honestly surprised that they were going there that fast.
So this scene was the scene that made the entire movie (regardless of the fact that I enjoyed every single minute of it). It is iconic, this scene will be remembered, it’s classic horror. I saw an interview and John said that Emily only took one take for this scene. That is amazing considering how well she acted it out. It was easily one of the most suspenseful scenes in the movie. The red lights were visually eye-catching. I love the solution to the problem, the fireworks were a clever idea. Later on after she has the baby and is resting in the basement and it floods. This is one of the most intense scenes I’ve ever seen. It’s perfect, the plot did everything it needed to arrive at that point, there was no turning back for these characters, this scene happened naturally, it stuck to the movie’s mythology. You’re afraid for both the baby and the mother, it’s a nail biter. Also the red colors added so much to it. In the movie red means danger and the viewer knows that making it stick somewhere in your head that the mother and the baby are in immense peril.
Another great scene is the grain silo scene. For a moment I actually thought Regan (Simmonds) was done for when she drowned in all of that corn. The monster comes and it’s disturbed by Regan’s faulty hearing aid. This is the important twist the movie wanted us to know. The audience understood it immediately, the characters, not so much. This brings me to my one flaw with this movie: Lee’s death. I usually don’t care much for characters that I barely connect with that die but seriously why does Lee die? He dies because he has to. The movie is about parenthood and what parents are willing to do for their children. It had to have this scene which yes I don’t mind, what bothers me is that it could’ve easily been avoided. Regan knows that her hearing aid weakens the monster as she attacked it in the silo but she decided to turn it off because it was giving her pain which I understand but why didn’t she turn it on when the creature was attacking the car. She basically forced her father to kill himself for her. It didn’t work. This reminds me of This IS Us where in a family, the father does the most to care for his children, the father dies, the father is beloved by the family and viewers everywhere. Only This is Us didn’t kill off the father cheaply.
So for the monsters themselves, I am definitely intrigued. Most people say they look A LOT like the demagorgon from Stranger Things which I can see where they’re coming from but these monsters (actually they are called ‘Death Angels‘ just looked it up) are unique and cleverly put together. They are scary and even though they remained mysterious for a good amount of the film when they appeared, it didn’t lessen the scare factor. They aren’t xenomorph level iconic, actually they aren’t even icons in my opinions they look unique and you will surely remember how they look but they’re just another monster. What I mean by that is that there is nothing to separate them from the Demogorgon, Cloverfield-like monsters, they aren’t their own thing. A great horror villain which I do consider an icon is Pennywise from the latest IT. The ‘Death Angels’ are great, just not iconic in any way in terms of appearances.
Finally the ending. Not exaggerating in any way when I say that this movie has one of the best endings ever. It’s the perfect ending to this story. Chances are if someone asked you how would you end this story, you wouldn’t know how to go about it. The little snark on Evelyn’s face when she loads the gun is the most satisfactory thing I’ve seen in a movie ever. You are rooting for these characters and when they actually win for once, it’s the best feeling ever. I love how they left it, did they win, did they lose, it’s all up to you to decide, at first you will want more, in fact when it ended I shouted “what, that’s it?” in the cinema. Not my proudest moment but I was invested and I wanted to see more but form a film making perspective it was the perfect ending.
So by now you have noticed how I started a lot of my sentences with ‘I love’ and apart from that one flaw I praised everything. I love this movie and will be definitely be re-watching. This movie is a classic in the making. Looking forward to buying it.
What did you think?
owen is a filmaholic 