John Krasinski’s survival horror is familiar in a new way.
We may well be entering a new era of the already-booming horror revival. Perhaps unfairly, the genre is seen a little as an entry point for new filmmakers—cutting their teeth on scary movies before moving on. John Krasinski is already very much established in the cultural mainstream. He’s directed movies before (albeit to arguable success), and, of course, is responsible for one of the most seminal and endearing sitcom characters of the century. His decision to rewrite, direct, and star in a high-concept horror script that came his way isn’t much of a big swing, but it represents an ever-shifting attitude toward horror as not only a viable money-making option, but an opportunity to lean in to more outlandish and ambitious styles of filmmaking.
And A Quiet Place is nothing if not ambitious. Set in the near future, in which the world has been all but ended by mysterious, sinewy creatures with excellent hearing, the film follows a family living on a remote farm in absolute silence. A whisper out of place, a glass knocked to the ground, and it’s all over. We see the Abbotts were perhaps better equipped than most of the world to survive with these new rules: Lee and Evelyn’s daughter, Regan, is deaf. As such, sign language has been part and parcel of their lives long before we pick up the story.
In an excellent opening sequence, Krasinski sets the stakes and the rules masterfully without a spoken word between the five Abbotts: Lee, Evelyn, their children Marcus, Regan, and the youngest, Beau. Scavenging in an abandoned grocery store, communicating effectively and wordlessly. On their way back home, Beau sets off the toy rocket he took from the store. Tinny laser sound effects have never felt so sinister. A tall, rust-colored figure bursts out of the woods and takes Beau within seconds. He never had a chance. We jump forward one year.
A Quiet Place already succeeds leaps and bounds over most major studio horror movies by virtue of it actually being quite scary, something a shocking number of horror movies fail to do. Every second of A Quiet Place is filled with oppressive dread, and Krasinski has more fun than he perhaps should in devising and executing the film’s dozen or so jump scares, which eventually become a little excessive. The movie is an experiment in turning the age-old trope of “long, tense silence followed by a sudden loud noise” into a feature-length spectacle. There are, perhaps, twenty spoken lines of dialogue in all. There are moments of clumsiness, however necessary. We’re never clued into the origin of the creatures who have decimated the world as we know it, but Lee is sure to keep a whiteboard in his basement with pieces of information about the monsters. “BLIND” one bullet point reads. Ah. “WHAT IS WEAKNESS?” reads another. I wonder. “HOW MANY IN AREA? 3 CONFIRMED.” Thank you, John.
As brave as this sounds for a filmmaker still finding his feet, A Quiet Place‘s concept is as high as it gets. It will thrill Friday night crowds, but it courts a more sensitive audience with its emotional through-line, which if anything approaches being too sentimental at times. The virtues and challenges of being a family, of protecting your own will resonate with everyone. And though Krasinski and real-life partner Emily Blunt do good work as the Abbotts, it’s not as though this is heavy lifting. Krasinski’s decision to cast Millicent Simmonds, a legitimately deaf actor, as Regan is also commendable (though it should really be expected of any film that deigns to include a deaf character). She’s the best part of the film by far.
Of course, the noises stack up and the film reaches a loud and bloody conclusion, albeit with some genuinely surprising moments. The monsters retain their scariness, too, even after the requisite full-body shot reveals them in their entirety. A truly harrowing sequence in which Evelyn must give birth in a bathtub as quietly as possible, with a monster right downstairs, is enough to make you forget to breathe. The film’s final twenty minutes are pure shit-hitting-the-fan pulp bliss. It’s not quite fun, but it’s not quite serious either, something the film’s final shot is happy to confirm for us.
While not as brave an experiment in “silent” filmmaking as some are making it out to be, A Quiet Place is a seriously well put together story by a filmmaker who’s clearly done his homework, and delivered his first confirmed hit. (Remember when Krasinski made his directorial debut with an adaptation of the worst David Foster Wallace book? Gotta come out swinging, I guess.) Better yet, it’s a wide-release horror movie that’s actually scary. Its threatening tone, as well as a few of the film’s grimmer images, will stick with you. Krasinski’s finally nailed it on his quest to outgrow Jim Halpert. It’s nice to see old friends succeed.
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