The year is 2020, and the world is a hushed game of cat and mouse between humanity, and a mysterious apex predator that hunts through echolocation.
The year is 2018, and you feel yourself getting annoyed when patrons breathe too hard in a movie theater during A Quiet Place.
From the opening credits of the film, A Quiet Place is an individual experience. The story begins in a post-apocalyptic store, where a mother is gathering medication for one of her three children. Each barefooted movement made by the Abbott family is calculated and careful, the daughter dives to catch a toy space ship knocked over by her younger brother to prevent a single sound. Despite the ineffective hearing aid in her ear, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) knows that with loud noises, danger is not far behind.
Her father (John Krasinski), horrified by the prospect of what might have been, takes the toy from the boy, removes its batteries and places it on a shelf as they leave. Regan, upon seeing his dissapointment, returns the rocket to the child with a small smile. What her wry act of compassion misses is the two double A batteries the boy pockets as they leave.
As they make the trek home, the weary family single file crosses a bridge close to their destination. Regan walks second to last, looking around, with her younger brother trailing behind. Unbeknownst to her, he has reinserted the batteries to his toy rocket, and pressed one of its buttons. With the first spaceship noise, the boy’s parents wip around in complete horror. His father takes off in a full sprint toward the boy as his mother breaks down in silent sobs. Regan realizes what is happening just in time to turn and see her little brother ripped off the bridge by an enormous dark creature as her father reaches desperately at the air where he just was.
Time passes before the next scene, but the stage has been set. The Abbotts live in a home completely rigged to be as quiet as possible, and communicate through American Sign Language and occasional hushed whispers. Evelyn Abbott is now very pregnant, and her husband looks ten years older. Regan is nearing puberty and struggling with her younger brother’s death, while her father tries to teach his other son how to help provide for the family. The family knows that as the matriarch nears the end of her pregnancy they rest only a few infant’s cries from death. The action peaks as Evelyn Abbott finds herself close to birth with her family absent, and the constant threat of mysterious apex predators encroaching on their home.
The beauty of this film lies in its dreadful suspense. Each scene is perfectly curated to be one of bated breath and sweaty palms.
John Krasinski’s familiar face (of The Office fame) is masked with a thick beard and rendered completely unrecognizable as he falls into the near – feral character of Lee Abbott. Despite being a fresh face to the genre, Krasinski’s portrayal is completely gut-wrenching. All I can ask of 2018 is that this is not the last we see of Krasinki in the horror genre, whether as a director or an actor.
There are not words to describe the overwhelming weight of anxiety this film invokes in the viewers. The archaic fear of prey settles in like a fog, no matter the venue where A Quiet Place is viewed. The experience is interactive, absorbing and absolutely horrifying.
(A Quiet Place official poster)
