I saw 'A Quiet Place'
August 4th 2018
I have interesting relationship with scary, horror movies. As a child, just like most people, you are curious, until you watch it, and then you become afraid of the dark, and noises. And of course you will start flipping switches even though you know, no monsters is in the shadows.
Fast forward in time I only needed one game to play, to look at horror games differently. First it was Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which I have never played fully, and recently Alien: Isolation, which I love and consider one of the best computer game of all time. It perfectly captured the first Alien movie, a film I saw young and I was terrified. The game however made me curious again about this genre and started playing horror games. Movies are a different beast, as it can be very uneven in quality.
Personally I like scary movies, that are more psychological - the "you know what's not there" - than the in your face, which are sometimes too bloody horror.
I don't remember watching the trailer, but I must have seen it, since one of my favorite actor plays in it, John Krasinski, who I love from his "The Office" days. So I remembered somewhere, that led me to watching the movie.
From this line I will talk about this movie with spoilers, since it's very hard not to, so if you haven't seen it, don't continue reading. (but I highly recommend watching this movie, because it is really, really good)
SPOILER WARNING!
## It's really quiet… and scary
From the first moment I was totally sucked in by the atmosphere. While the title suggested that in this movie sound and voices will be major impact, I didn't expected that much.
We follow a family with of two adults and 3 children in a store. The city seems abandoned and they communicate with sign language, they don't even whisper. And that looks very interesting and unsettling.
We don't know why or how, but there are monsters now that are although blind, but their hearing is very sensitive. The family doesn't wear shoes, and they carry sand around to make their way, to walk on it.
I think this premise is an excellent idea, since it's eliminates jumpscares (and the usual scream type of scenes), and put emphasis on working together, instead of splitting up, which is a horror trope for ever.
Similar scenario why people liked the Buffy episode, Hush - in which mysterious demons come to town and stole everyone's voice.
From the mystery point, I don't think we need to know what happened to the outside world, as the story only focuses on this family alone, though we see articles about the panic in their home. This is more interesting for me, then let's say showing the millitary or bigger cities. It's more closer, more human.
The children (played by Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmons) in the movie are real characters, they are not your typical, annoying faces. They know the stakes, even though one of them made a horrible mistake early on. They have differences, and the things they went through very much strenghtened their relationship, both between each other and with their parents.
John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are married in real life with kids, and it shines through and I am so glad they made this film happen this way! The family feels real, with all of their inner problems, tragedy and quiet moments.
I saw many people pick apart 'A Quiet Place', and it probably doesn't broke new grounds, but what it gives you is a scary time, with good characters and something to think about later.
The music by Marco Beltrami fits very well, throughout the whole movie. I am not a musician, but I think it is just as terrifying as the film itself. I don't know how to describe it well, but it helped me to be more scarred, it made the whole experience even better.
My advice just enjoy the movie, and definitely watch it with somebody close to you, friends or family, doesn't matter. Because I think it is a good conversation starter. This movie is what our modern, western life isn't.
We live our busy life with so many distraction, that we can't slow down to sit in peace for a few minutes in silence. We need to know the news of the world, who did what, why, all the time. We are addicted to the Screen. Our communication needs to change with each other.
Final verdict
A Quiet Place is a good scary movie. It became a surprise hit in the opening weekend. It shows that you can still make good scary movies without using shocking scenes, too much gore and stupid, overused jumpcares.