A QUIET PLACE was my number-one movie of 2018. I challenge you to find a more consistent horror film that has come out in the last decade. It instantly cemented John Krasinski as a filmmaker and focused on how the absence of sound in horror is scarier than the shock.
A QUIET PLACE II was a damn good movie, but it was not up to par with the original. The plot was heavily borrowed from THE LAST OF US II, and the characters, for how silent they should be, sure did talk a lot.
Instead of getting a sequel, audiences end up with an unnecessary prequel that somehow fits perfectly into the QUIET PLACE universe. My issue with DAY ONE is that I didn’t want to return to the start; I wanted to continue learning what happens as the characters go “Beyond the Sea.” But that’s different from the story the new director, Michael Sarnoski, wants to tell. I understand why tropes are important in genre horror pictures, but the tropes in this film are so damn predictable.
- If a character states they want food at the start, you can guess it will be involved in an emotional climax later.
- A cancer patient during an alien invasion – what could they possibly do by the end? ๐
- There’s a domesticated cat in the movie – do you think they might put the protagonist in danger at some point?
With those complaints out of the way, DAY ONE has some emotionally satisfying moments, mainly between Joseph Quinn and Lupita Nyong’o. Their inspiring dynamic makes the quiet moments in A QUIET PLACE worth sticking around for. Yet again, the stakes don’t feel as big as The Abbott’s family in I and II.
Even though I didn’t love DAY ONE, it’s a film that deserves the big screen treatment. I love any time a movie forces audiences to be mindful in a theater due to the noise from their cell phone, candy wrappers, or popcorn. In DAY ONE, A character states, “I forgot how the city sings when you’re quiet.” The same can be said for a darkened theatre. And one of my favorite things in life is to experience the song of a quiet audience.
DAY ONE is available in theatres.
