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A Quiet Place

Review by An Honest Fangirl

This is a movie that I've been excited about seeing for awhile now. The trailer, the casting, the premises, all of it seemed excellent. So, naturally, I was scared that it wouldn't live up to the hype. This review will be spoiler-free.

It did, though, albeit not in the way that I was expecting. From all of the trailers and everything going in, I was expecting a horror movie, and that's not quite what we get. While the characters do go through very real horror and terror, it plays out for the audience more like a suspense piece with occasional ruminations on how to be a parent in a fundamentally dangerous world.

It is the latter half of that which gives A Quiet Place it's heart and makes it a rather emotional movie. I cried while watching it, and that caught me very off-guard. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, who are married with children in real life, just do some much emotional heavy lifting, usually without saying a word. Just so much was expressed through their eyes that I have to give both of them gold acting stars.

Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe are given kind of thankless roles as the two children, but they also do very well. I especially appreciated how Simmonds, a deaf actress, was playing a deaf character and how the movie placed her in a position of strength and intelligence.

I said earlier that I couldn't classify this as a horror movie, but there are a lot of jump scares that take the form of loud, sudden noises. I normally don't like jump scares, but they really worked within the world of the movie. When any loud sound can bring terrifying monsters to your door, their occurrence should be a terrifying event.

The monsters genuinely are scary too, despite some less than great CGI. Okay, the CGI was pretty bad. But they are set up as a threat right from the very first scene, and all of the actors do a fantastic job of conveying desperation and fear whenever the monsters are around. You really buy into the fact that these creatures are a credible threat to everyone and are capable of essentially destroying civilization.

Everyone has been praising the sound design, and they should. It's fantastic. I'm just not sure how well it translated into a movie theatre setting. Even though everyone in technically silent in the theatre, you still have the sound of crunching popcorn, or clinking ice, or someone shifting in their seat. You normally don't notice these things, but in a movie that is often near silent, these audience made sounds are amplified and can at times take away from what is happening on screen.

My one other complaint would be that there were two occasions where both adults ignored a very obvious and at times noisy issue that would obviously cause problems down the line for no apparent good reason. I can normally ignore characters doing stupid things, especially in stressful situations, but these instances contradicted the fact that both parents are very intelligent and careful about anything that could cause sound.

Random Thoughts


I couldn't quite figure out the significance of the red lights, and that bothers me way more than it should. 

Thanks to this movie, I've discovered a new phobia that I never knew I had involving corn. 

My friend counted only 30 lines of spoken dialogue throughout the movie. 

A Quiet Place is fairly short at exactly 90 minutes long. 

If you really liked what they did with the sound design in this movie, and you don't hate masked killer/home invasion horror movies, I would highly recommend Hush. It's another movie with a deaf and mute character at the center, although I'm not sure if the actress playing her is either of those things. 


I really enjoyed this movie, and you definitely should see it if it intrigues you. But like I said, I'm not sure if the experience would be better watching it at home in a controlled, quiet environment compared to in a movie theatre.

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An Honest Fangirl loves superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, and really bad horror movies. 

3 comments:

  1. "I couldn't quite figure out the significance of the red lights, and that bothers me way more than it should."

    They were meant as a silent alarm system. Something other people would notice, but the creatures wouldn't.

    I thought the movie was pretty good, but I agree the characters behaved foolishly at times. The basic decision the parents made that led to the final crisis (trying to avoid spoilers here) was pretty stupid under the circumstances. How did they think that was going to end?

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  2. My thoughts while watching the movie (SPOILERS follow):

    - This little kid is annoying and a liability. The family will be better off without him.

    - Kid dies: I feel no remorse.

    - Clever writing to have one of the kids be deaf. It makes sense that this family survived, they were already used to communicating through silence.

    - There must be very few dogs left. Cats, however, will most likely outlive humans, especially wild cats. They are masters of silence.

    - God, why is every kid so clumsy? Wait a second, I'm very clumsy. I would be one of the first to die in this apocalypse.

    - Lady, why are you pregnant? Crying baby will be of no help. Women, don't get pregnant during the apocalypse. Men, don't impregnate your woman during the apocalypse. Straight people, control yourselves during the apocalypse.

    - Aw, I want the girl to be happy. She is so tortured. I like her.

    - Is this creature related to the monster of Stranger Things? They must be cousins, they are very similar.

    - Come to think of it, where did these creatures come from?

    - Oh my god, old man, don't scream. Poor old man.

    - Yes, the labor scene. The scene I was looking forward to the most after watching the trailer. I'm so tense right now!

    - I can see it, the fireworks will go out right when the woman screams. Tension is over.

    - Well, that turned out to be a super quick birth.

    - This is turning into a series of unfortunate events. Poor family.

    - Uh, sound travels faster in water, I cannot buy that this woman is still alive.

    - Kid, don't turn off the ear device.

    - He loves her, he really loves her. Tear. Now I know how to say "I love you" in sign language (that's a lie, I already forgot). Bye, dad.

    - This family has a new source of noise and is one grownup down? They will all be dead by the end of the movie.

    - Okay, so no one, no scientist, no engineer, no musician, not anyone figured out that there was a frequency that upset/scared the monsters? Right... Forget that, Lamounier, this is a small scale story.

    - Oh, yeah, the ladies are going to kick some ass!

    - Can we have a sequel where the mom dies and the siblings fight for their survival all by themselves?

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    Great review, Fangirl. I liked the movie a lot and I look forward to rewatching it... in a quiet environment, like you said. Loved to know that they cast an actual deaf actress to play the role of a deaf character.

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  3. Ok, so I just watched this movie (now that its out for free on demand) and I was really impressed - as an engineer and a fan of post apocalyptic stories, I can usually figure out what I would have done better/different, but these guys nailed it for me.

    One major question - how did they plant and harvest all that corn without machines (or making noise)? Farming is so labor intensive, I can't see how its possible.

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