John Krasinski, the director of the horror films in the ‘A Quite Place‘ series, learned an important lesson from the classics of the genre, and especially, I believe, from Alfred Hitchcock. If you have a good idea in hand, focus the film around it, avoid complications, and especially avoid explanations. In horror and the associated sub-genres, effects are amplified by the lack of technical details and complicated solutions. Fog and shadows are definitely, after all, well-known elements of the genre’s props. The first film in this series, ‘A Quiet Place‘, lasts only 90 minutes, has only four characters (I only counted the human ones), and yet it manages to make an impact and make its viewers think about what they have just seen after the end of the screening. The less fortunate may even be haunted some of the scenes in nightmares.
We are in a post-apocalyptic world. The apocalypse happened about 246 days ago. We don’t know exactly what it was (ecological catastrophe?, alien invasion?). Underground monsters have taken over the planet and exterminated a large part of the human population. Their most developed sense, perhaps the only one, is hearing. Any noise that survivors make endengers their lives. They are forced to live in a world of silence. The Abbott family has a hearing-impaired teenage daughter. Their knowledge of sign language is an advantage. Survival is not easy, especially since a baby is about to be born.
The terror of silence is a great idea and John Krasinski builds around it. Viewers can’t help but wonder how long they would last if they were to survive in such a world. The monsters in ‘A Quite Place‘ do not look very original, they seem to be borrowed from movies like ‘Alien’. The characters belong to the family horror movies, but the spectators are not exempt from scenes of explicit violence. Everything is filmed impeccably, we are somewhere in the American Midwest and we see rendered with anticipatory accuracy the look of the world a few months after a major disaster. Among the actors I have to mention Emily Blunt (great casting as a mother in extreme conditions) and especially Millicent Simmonds in the role of the teenage daughter. The latter is a very young and extremely talented actress and I hope that she will get the chance of good roles, which will develop her career. Made with talent and simple means, violent as needed without falling into extremes, ‘A Quiet Place‘ manages to combine good cinematic quality with a horror film that will fully satisfy fans of this genre. The second film in the series was released in 2020 and seems to be close to the quality of the first, and the third is in preparation. It’s a series worth watching.