The Silence (2019): adapted from the Tim Lebbon novel by Carey and Shane Van Dyke; directed by John R. Leonetti; starring Stanley Tucci (Hugh Andrews), Kiernan Shipka (Ally Andrews), Miranda Otto (Kelly Andrews), Kyle Breitkopf (Jude Andrews), Kate Trotter (Lynn), and John Corbett (Glenn):
Competent horror-thriller just as long as you don't think too hard about its central presence. Like A Quiet Place, it pits a small family group against monsters that hunt by sound.
In this case, the monsters come from a recently opened cave system "1000 feet below the Earth" rather than space. They look like the offspring of Gremlins and medieval gargoyles. They breed so fast that they rapidly threaten the Earth. What were they eating in that cave system during their millions of years of imprisonment? One another, I guess.
It's all solid and occasionally squirmy. Don't think too hard about the creatures' sensitivity to sound and the way they swarm it. Or what they ate. Stanley Tucci and Miranda Otto are solid pros. As in A Quiet Place, a deaf daughter plays a key role, along with American sign language. Certainly an adequate time-waster with something of an abrupt ending. Lightly recommended.
A Quiet Place (2018): written by Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, and John Krasinski; directed by John Krasinski; starring Emily Blunt (Evelyn Abbott), John Krasinski (Lee Abbott), Millicent Simmonds (Regan Abbott), Noah Jupe (Marcus Abbott) and Cade Woodward (Beau Abbott):
Best known as Jim from The Office (USA), John Krasinski does fine work here as co-writer, director, and co-star of A Quiet Place, a quiet piece of science-fiction horror that was almost a Cloverfield movie.
The movie isn't as quiet as the hype suggested. Or maybe I'm just more accustomed to quiet movies than most audiences and critics. It is pretty quiet, though. As the trailers and posters tell you before you enter the theatre, A Quiet Place follows the efforts of a family to survive an alien invasion by creatures who hunt by sound.
In case you're wondering, that's both active and passive sound. Passive-only and the aliens would spend a lot of time running into things as a tribute to the T. Rex of Jurassic Park and its inability to see things that aren't moving. Ha ha! But no, the aliens also possess some sort of active sonar.
Krasinski and real-life spouse Emily Blunt are excellent as the parents of three children, one of them -- the oldest daughter -- deaf. Do you think that deafness will become a plot point, perhaps even a major one?
Krasinski wisely keeps the monsters mostly off-stage and barely glimpsed until the climax. They're interesting creatures design-wise, and that design plays into the finale. The film also does a solid job of presenting pertinent information without relying on conventional exposition. A lot of information about the alien invasion appears in newspaper headlines pinned to the wall of Krasinski's character's workshop. So, too, possible foreshadowing of things to come.
For the most part, A Quiet Place is about desperate people who nonetheless remain competent in the worst situations. In this sense, it's a throwback to 1950's horror-science-fiction movies, except that instead of following experts trying to combat giant ants or flying saucers, we're on the ground with a single family. It's surprising how refreshing competent characters can be. It's almost subversive!
Perhaps there are a few things that don't quite ring true. But overall, this is a lovely piece of work, tense and tart and occasionally sweet, with characters one comes rapidly to care about. I do sort of dread the fact that a sequel has been ordered, however. Unless it involves alien invaders who hunt by the sense of smell. And is presented in Smellorama! Highly recommended.
