Paramount Pictures
I thoroughly enjoyed the original A Quiet Place. When the sequel A Quiet Place II came out, it was barely a blip on my radar. When the first film ended in such a satisfying way, why add another (other than the obvious reason for box office sales).
With the addition of the most recent release to the now-growing franchise, A Quiet Place: Day One gives us a prequel. I was ready with my eye roll queued. But the trailer sucked me in, the prequel looked intriguing, and I am always up for an alien invasion of New York City.
A Quiet Place: Day One is the origin story of how our super-hearing, carnivorous aliens took over the Earth.
It all starts with Sam, a sharp-tongued terminal cancer patient living in hospice just outside of the city with her emotional support cat Frodo. While on a field trip with other patients to a marionette show in NYC, meteors strike Manhattan.
Emerging from the meteors are deadly aliens that cannot see, but track their prey by sound. Sam is knocked unconscious in the wake of the meteors’ destruction. When she comes to, Sam is found by Henri (hey that’s the guy from the 2nd movie) and reunited with Frodo. After the theater is attacked, Sam escapes and makes her way with Frodo uptown to Harlem.
Along the way she comes across Eric, a British student who went to the US to study law. Eric is in shock from his own brush with the aliens. Having nowhere else to go, Eric latches on to Sam and follows her to Harlem on her mission to visit the places of her last happy memories and have a last piece of pizza from her favorite place before she dies.
How do you successfully make a horror film when the audience has already seen the big, bad monsters twice before? You sell the terror with some A+ acting and first-rate filmmaking.
It amazes me that in the era of 5-second sound bytes, a film like A Quiet Place: Day One can be so fascinating with so little dialog. Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther) is captivating. She sells the terror of the invasion with a look. The acting is all in her eyes and face. Nyong’o makes it feel real. Joseph Quinn’s (Stranger Things) Eric holds his own alongside Nyong’o’s Sam.
The moment Eric realizes all his family is back home in England and that he will probably never see or hear from them again hurts. It made me wonder what I would do if faced with the same situation.
Pat Scola’s (Pig) cinematography is spot-on. The blocking and the framing of the scenes build the tension. It was enough to make me squirm in my seat. Pair the cinematography with Gregory Plotkin’s (Get Out) and Andrew Mondshein’s (Sixth Sense) tight editing and you have a film that tugs the viewer from pulled-tight tension to rapid-fire action. It’s a whole lot of film packed into an hour and a half.
Story-wise, it is interesting that the writers chose to follow a protagonist who is terminally ill. I found myself wondering, “Why fight if you are going to die anyway”. Really, is there anything more human than to fight tooth and nail to live (and die) on their own terms? Nyong’o drives that message home through her determination throughout her progression in the film.
The only detraction for me was the overuse of the “jump scare” with the aliens.
I tend to think things are scary when the filmmakers show less, and let the viewer’s imagination run wild, but I also get some viewers are in it specifically for the monsters.
Extras include several featurettes and deleted & extended scenes.
I enjoyed A Quiet Place: Day One to the point where it has made me reconsider my stance on A Quiet Place II, and will give it a view.
A Quiet Place: Day One is a great addition to the Quiet Place mythology, but you don’t have to see the others to enjoy it. It can completely stand on its own.
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