Looking for thrills? Try “A Quiet Place”
“A Quiet Place”
Horror is not a movie genre that generally appeals to me, but this movie received good reviews and it stars one of my favourite actors, the British Emily Blunt. So I took the opportunity of a pandemic lockdown to catch it on television. In fact, the film is something of a family affair since it was co-written and directed by and stars Blunt’s American husband John Krasinski.
It is an astonishingly minimalist work with only four real characters, almost no spoken dialogue, and essentially one main setting, all contained in a taut running time of just 90 minutes. But it is a small film with a big punch as an American family seeks to stay alive when haunted by murderous creatures who can detect them from the slightest sound. This original plot device, plus Blunt’s wonderful acting, raise the work to something rather special.
“A Quiet Place Part II”
Following the considerable success of the original film, I was keen to see the sequel in a cinema and, after a release postponed by a year due to the pandemic, it was good to enjoy the experience in a movie theatre. Again it is directed by John Krasinski, but this time he has sole writing credit. Again it stars him and his wife Emily Blunt, but this time a larger part goes to the young deaf actor Millicent Simmonds, while Cillian Murphy takes on an important new role in the story of survival against blind but ferocious creatures who hunt by sound.
The film has a terrific pre-title opening before picking up the story exactly where we left it in the original movie. Blunt’s character has lost her husband and a son but she still has two children and a baby so, on day 474 of the alien attack, she sets out on a search for help. It is an effective and satisfying sequel that again limits itself to an a hour and a half – but we can leave it there.