A Quiet Place (2018)
Directed by John Krasinski
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
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What critics say influenced A Quiet Place
Krasinski has clearly absorbed a lesson in conceptual economy from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," and like a "Jaws"-era Steven Spielberg, he takes his time revealing the monsters in all their sharp-fanged, big-eared hideousness.
Like Spielberg in Jaws, Krasinski knows that our imaginations can fill the gaps much more effectively through restraint.
Krasinski takes more than a couple cues from Spielberg — there’s a whole lot of Jurassic Park’s DNA in this movie, but most obviously, Krasinski takes Jaws approach, building fear of his monsters by keeping them off-screen.
Krasinski, who directs and shows a deftness not present in his family drama “The Hollars,” seems inspired by the “Jaws” idea of not showing off the monsters of his creature-feature for most of the movie.
Like Jaws, the monster is a marvel.
In the time-honored tradition of Jaws and Aliens, the monsters are kept offscreen for as long as possible.
Krasinski has clearly absorbed a lesson in conceptual economy from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," and like a "Jaws"-era Steven Spielberg, he takes his time revealing the monsters in all their sharp-fanged, big-eared hideousness.
Krasinski, along with gifted cinematographer Charlotte Brus Christensen, editor Christopher Tellefsen and composer Marco Beltrani, handle these astutely and intelligently for maximum audience freakouts, with knowing nods to The Birds, War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park, The Road, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Walking Dead.
If this was an easy thing to do, we’d have one of these films every week, but Krasinski’s script brings human emotion to a genre entertainment to create suspense in a way that even Hitchcock might have enjoyed (there are superficial similarities to The Birds here).
Picture classic scenes of Ripley tiptoeing through a nest of alien eggs in “Aliens” or Tippi Hedrin and Rod Taylor creeping through a resting flock in “The Birds,” no one daring to make a sound.
Despite its artfully conceived and original set up, “A Quiet Place” admittedly turns into a more conventional scarefest, not unlike “Aliens” or “Predator.”
Picture classic scenes of Ripley tiptoeing through a nest of alien eggs in “Aliens” or Tippi Hedrin and Rod Taylor creeping through a resting flock in “The Birds,” no one daring to make a sound.
A Quiet Place is one of the most effective and intelligently realised horror offerings that will be a talking point amongst fans for years to come and a bonafide Horror classic that is up there with James Cameron’s Aliens.
A little bit of Aliens (giant insectoid carnivores), a little bit of Signs (small farm family under attack, in a house surrounded by cornfields).
In the time-honored tradition of Jaws and Aliens, the monsters are kept offscreen for as long as possible.
At just 90 minutes, A Quiet Place is brisk, but it’s also patient; this is one of those monster movies that builds tension from the absence of the monster, at least until the full-bore, unbroken set-piece of the second half, when all the stillness and pregnant pauses give way to an extended riff on the best scenes in Jurassic Park .
I’m going to make a bold statement here – the last time a film had me gripping the sides of my chair like this was Jurassic Park.
Krasinski, along with gifted cinematographer Charlotte Brus Christensen, editor Christopher Tellefsen and composer Marco Beltrani, handle these astutely and intelligently for maximum audience freakouts, with knowing nods to The Birds, War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park, The Road, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Walking Dead.
The ensuing thriller built on these core relationships invokes the likes of Close Encounters, Jurassic Park or, more recently, War of the Worlds.
These ghoulish, hulking insectoid creations suggest equal parts “Alien” and “Jurassic Park,” which is to say both derivative and grotesque enough to make the simple threat hold tight.
Krasinski takes more than a couple cues from Spielberg — there’s a whole lot of Jurassic Park’s DNA in this movie, but most obviously, Krasinski takes Jaws approach, building fear of his monsters by keeping them off-screen.
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Krasinski, along with gifted cinematographer Charlotte Brus Christensen, editor Christopher Tellefsen and composer Marco Beltrani, handle these astutely and intelligently for maximum audience freakouts, with knowing nods to The Birds, War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park, The Road, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Walking Dead.
But he also builds a fantastically sustained mood, in ways that feels both completely modern and pleasingly old-school, with its shades of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and other ’80s touchstones.
As with Jordan Peele’s 2017 “Get Out,” “A Quiet Place” is a horror movie made by someone — John Krasinski of “The Office” — primarily known for comedy.
I was reminded of the surprise I felt after seeing last year's Get Out.
Krasinski turns in an impressive feature filmmaking debut — more Get Out than It Comes at Night (and that’s a very good thing).
In the same way that film a film like The Babadook addressed the concept of grief, or how Get Out shined a light on racism in modern America, so too does A Quiet Place offer up a fascinating look at the struggles of parenting and keeping a family together in the face of adversity.
“A Quiet Place” doesn’t have the pin-you-to-your-seat originality of “Get Out,” or the psychological depth and pure scare impact of “Lights Out” or the wall-to-wall intensity of “Don’t Breathe,” but it is one of the smarter and more involving horror films of the last few years.
The monsters are derivative — the Alien franchise cut with a little War of the Worlds — and barely seen, usually a good strategy in horror movies but maybe also a practical matter here, as the CGI creature effects are just so-so.
They are very grotesque, bigger versions of the polyp-like succubus which exploded out of John Hurt’s stomach in Alien.
A Quiet Place (??? out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters nationwide Friday) is essentially Alien on a farm: Even though there are cornfields and land for days, there's a constant state of panic and claustrophobia for a family stalked by monsters who attack anything that makes noise.
At times, we might be watching an “Alien” sequel in which the creature had mated with a very nasty and scolding librarian.
Based on a screenplay credited to Bryan Woods, Scott Beck and Krasinski, the tight, scary film’s action is set against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world, one already decimated by sightless, flesh-tearing, lizardy Alien-esque creatures armed with trigger reflexes, supersensitive hearing and an insatiable hunger for human flesh.
These ghoulish, hulking insectoid creations suggest equal parts “Alien” and “Jurassic Park,” which is to say both derivative and grotesque enough to make the simple threat hold tight.
All of which is to say: “A Quiet Place” has the smart/dumb, original/derivative, logic/anti-logic quality of a mid-period M. Night Shyamalan special like “Signs” or “The Village.”
I also got a sense of cinematic déjà vu from time to time, due to some superficial similarities to M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs,” from the farm setting to the actual sounds the aliens make.
I’m comparing the tension to Scott’s film, but many of you will find the story similar to M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs.”
Then, too, there’s the uncomfortable recognition that a lawsuit is almost certainly about to drop over the distinct similarities between the screenplay and Tim Lebbon’s novel The Silence (recently filmed but not yet released) and, before you even get there, some obvious comparisons to M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs and TV’s The Walking Dead.
John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place,” a Michael Bay-produced sci-fi-horror hybrid with a lot in common with M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 hit “Signs,” comes out of the SXSW Festival with a lot of buzz.
Whether intentional or not, "A Quiet Place" intermittently unspools like a loose remake of M. Night Shyamalan's scary, heartrending 2002 triumph " Signs ."
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You could add El Orfanato and Neil Marshall's The Descent – which A Quiet Place surely nods to – to that list.
The alien, which is something of a cross between a velociraptor and the set-of-fangs within set-of-fangs perfect organism from “Alien,” can’t see; that puts it somewhere between “Tremors” and “Pitch Black.”
That might sound quite a bit like the 1990 film "Tremors" where subterranean "worms" likewise hunted by sound and related vibrations.