MOVIE REVIEW: ‘A Quiet Place’ – “If they hear you, they hunt you.”

This review contains major plot spoilers for the film “A Quiet Place.”

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

“A Quiet Place” is a 2018 American science-fiction horror film that was written and directed by one of the main stars of the film, John Krasinski. Krasinski stars in the movie alongside his real-life wife, Emily Blunt. The plot of this 90-minute film consists of a family of four and their fight for survival against intensely terrifying creatures that hunt through sound. They must carry out their day-to-day activities in complete silence or run the risk of being hunted and killed. Bryan Woods and Scott Beck started working on the story for the film back in 2014. Paramount Pictures later bought their script in 2017. After that, Krasinksi joined the team as a director and wrote the final draft of the script.

Here is the breakdown of the plot:

The film is based in the future, 2020. By this time, most of Earth’s human population has been killed by blind creatures that use their hypersensitive hearing abilities for hunting. Not only do they use their hearing to their advantage but they also use their indestructible shells to protect them from anyone or anything brave enough to fight back. What is even more interesting about the plot is that husband, Lee Abbott, and the wife, Evelyn Abbott, have a congenitally deaf daughter named Regan. Regan is played by the 16-year-old actress, Millicent Simmonds, who is actually deaf in real life. There are also the two
younger sons Marcus and Beau. The family uses American Sign Language to communicate on a daily basis.

At the beginning of the movie, four-year-old Beau is attached to a battery operated toy that makes noise. His father takes it away from him, but Regan gives the toy back to Beau without her father knowing. One day when the family was walking through the woods, Beau was playing with the toy and activated the sound function and immediately became a target. Sadly, there was a creature nearby and Beau was killed.

A year after the incident, Regan still blames herself for her brother’s death and struggles with guilt because of it. Lee continuously tries to contact the outside world through his radio. Evelyn gets herself into an almost fatal situation when she goes into labor while alone in the house. Her water breaks and so she begins to make her way to the soundproof basement that they built in their house. She steps on a nail and accidentally drops a glass picture frame which catches the attention of a nearby creature. Evelyn knows she is in danger so she flips a light switch that changes the exterior lights of the house to red to alert others of danger.

Lee sees the lights while traveling back with his kids and tells Marcus to set off fireworks as a distraction. Lee finds his wife in the basement holding their newborn son. The baby begins to cry and that brings around another creature. Lee leaves to find the children and Evelyn eventually manages to fall asleep. Soon, she wakes up to find that the basement has been flooded due to a burst pipeline and a creature is in close range and knows exactly where she is.

While this is happening, Regan and Marcus are trying to give a signal to show their father where they are so they light a fire on top of a grain silo. A door somehow opens up and Marcus falls into the silo. He falls into the corn and looks like he is about to drown in the corn until Regan jumps in to save him. All of the noise has attracted another creature. But the two manage to survive a potential attack by hiding under the fallen hatch door. With perfect timing, Regan’s cochlear implant in her ear has some sort of reaction and gives off a super high pitched sound that scares off the creature. Thankfully, the two kids make it back to their father.

Towards the end of the movie, the creature that almost attacked Regan and Marcus returns and Lee tries to attack it with an ax. Regan and Marcus hide in a nearby truck. Marcus lets out a yell when he
sees his father getting hurt and the creature heads towards the truck. Lee then communicates to his children in sign language that he loves them right before shouting to the creature and thus sacrificing himself so that his kids can survive.

Regan and Marcus make it back to the house where they find their mother and new baby brother. Regan makes her way to the basement where she finds her dad’s research and notes on the creatures and his experiments with different hearing implants. The creature that killed Lee returns to the house and tries to get into the basement. Regan takes her implant and puts it up against a microphone to amplify the high pitched noise that worked before. The sound effectively throws the creature off guard, causing it to reveal its weakest point, the flesh under its armored head. Evelyn takes the opportunity to shoot the creature in that exact spot. They notice on their security camera that more creatures are heading towards their home. But now that they know what it takes to defeat the creatures they are at an advantage.

Now that I gave the entire film away, I bet you are wondering what is next! Yes, it has been confirmed that a sequel to the film is in progress. I mean, we need to know what happens to this family as they have just discovered the creature’s ultimate vulnerability. Critics claim this film to be a “smart, wickedly frightening good time.” This film has been given a 95% by Rotten Tomatoes, an 8/10 by IMDb, and a 4/5 by Common Sense Media. This film has successfully satisfied the public and hopefully, the sequel will follow well in its footsteps.

Read more here: http://ninertimes.com/2018/05/movie-review-a-quiet-place/
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