"A Quiet Place" - Character in Silence | 5 Nights of Halloween #2

In this age, where sequels, spin-offs, adaptations, and remakes are a dime a dozen, it's both strange and refreshing to witness a film that takes pride in its originality and creativity. It's even better to watch it become such a massive hit and make a few hundred million at the box office.

John Krasinski's A Quiet Place is one of these films.

The sleeper hit came almost out of no where when it was first released back in April of 2018. The film bought an add spot at the Super Bowl, but it didn't get much hype until the near universal reviews started to come out of SXSW, where it premiered.

John Krasinski and Emily Blunt working on the film

A Quiet Place is an astounding work of art. The film follows a family as they survive the post-apocalypse and the creatures that hunt them. The gimmick: they can't make any sound. The monsters are blind as bats, but they have phenomenal hearing.

And in this limitation, A Quiet Place thrives.

The film can't say anything audibly. Sure, there's sound in the film, you hear characters walking and breathing, it can't tell its story and build its characters with dialog. I counted two audible conversations in the whole movie. There is a third of the way through involving the father (Krasinski) and his son, and there is a short on in the last thirty minutes between the mother (Emily Blunt) and father. All of the other sound is dedicated to environmental effects: animal noises, steps, the noise made be objects, et cetera.

Instead, A Quiet Place creates these wonderfully emotion and complex character arcs and dynamics with visuals. The film could have instead opted to use ASL instead of speech, but it doesn't even go that route. While the characters use ASL to interact with each other, we, as the audience, don't gain anything from those sections of the film. The film is a masterclass in visual storytelling.

The film relies very strongly on the idea of family for the dynamics between the character. The writer/director/star John Krasinski is married to fellow co-star Emily Blunt. The two have two children together. You can tell by watching the film. While the two have never actually been through something like this together, you can tell that they understand the relationships in a family. They weave and craft a story which feels so personal and tangible, despite it's sci-fi premise.

They say the point of sci-fi is to create an exaggerated reality so we can become introspective and look in on ourselves and understand humans better. A Quiet Place is a perfect example of this.

You can find your self and your family in the dynamics of the Abbott family. You can feel the fierce loyalty, undying love, complex feelings of guilt, the brokenness of ourselves and the people around us, and the willingness to give up everything for another that fill all famines bursting through the screen.

The film uses its excellent visuals not just to explore character, but to create some of the most frightening moments in film we've seen in a long time.

Many horror films uses terrifying creatures and gore to create their scares. This is not the case here. It doesn't use excessive violence or blood for its frightening elements. I'm thinking of the film It (2017) as I write this bit. It was the most recent horror film I watched before viewing A Quiet Place. While It is an excellent film, a lot of the horror relies on blood and gore, instead of atmosphere and tension. The excessiveness of the gore in It sometimes makes situations far more comedic then scary.

A Quiet Place never once falls prey to this.

A Quiet Place presents an interesting situation. It never forgets that it is a horror film and constantly gives excellent moments of fear, tension, and dread, it also succeeds in being so much more than its scares. It one-ups all of its horror peers, then turns the genre on itself and creates a beautiful tale about love and loss through the lens of a family.

A Quiet Place becomes so much more than just a scary movie and becomes a defining piece of art for this generation of film.


Up Next: The Cloverfield Trilogy


A Quiet Place Quick Facts
Directed by: John Krasinski
Written by: Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, John Krasinski
Stars: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds,
Released: April 6th, 2018
Run time: 90 minutes