Another thrilling addition to this not so quiet franchise.
The first “Quiet Place” movie was proof that John Krasinski is a brilliant filmmaker who has been able to introduce us to something unique within the horror genre. The sightless aliens whose sensitive hearing has people trying to SILENTLY live their lives. Even a small noise can get their attention. That’s when we found out the high pitched noise in cochlear implants is their greatest weakness.
The second film continues the story with as much strength and entertainment value as the first, although, in my opinion, I didn’t need to hear loud screams of pain. I concluded my review of it with: “Bring on Part III.”
And now, we have the stand-alone prequel “A Quiet Place: Day One,” which takes place the day the aliens come to Earth, but from the NYC perspective. This time, Krasinski only co-writes and producers, while the new director is Michael Sarnoski, whose last feature “Pig” is a masterpiece. This is a nice little step-up from a NEON-produced film to a Paramount-produced movie.
Lupita Nyong’o plays a terminally ill cancer patient named Sam who agrees to go to a New York marionette show, in exchange for some pizza from their childhood place. Unfortunately, that gets put on the back burner, when the aliens crash land in the Big Apple and raise some Hell. She doesn’t scream when all this chaos happens with the dust and the monsters grabbing runners, and Henri (Djimon Hounsou) the future leader of survivors (as seen in “Part II”) telling her “SHHHHHHHH.”
The military destroys all the bridges so they can’t get off the island, but I think we agree they already made their way off since we got to see them in the first two films.
Their only recourse is to escape on boats since these aliens can’t swim. So, while Sam and her cat Frodo are off to Harlem to the pizza place she wanted to go to, she meets another survivor-an English law student named Eric (Jospeh Quinn from the 4th season of “Stranger Things”), who follows her in his own skittish nature. She tells him to stop following him, but I think we can agree they need each other to survive.
“A Quiet Place: Day One” doesn’t have the kind of surprises that the first two movies had, and at first, I didn’t think we needed Sam to get upset about not getting pizza, but there are interesting characters you want to get to know of, their survival skills (with help from thunderstorms if you catch my drift), and there are some good reasons for that pizza. And I especially admired the work from Nyong’o and Quinn, as well as Sarnoski’s transition of movie genres.
I saw this prequel at an IMAX showing and even though I was covering my ears for the loud noises (and that is my mechanism to prevent any heart attacks in horror movies), I could still feel the excitement of the attacks and the chases. My favorite escape sequence, in particular, is when Sam, Eric, and Frodo evade one of the aliens in a flooded subway tunnel. It’s all in the production values and execution of that scene.
I can’t guarantee we’ll see these characters again in future installments (or maybe we’ll see one of them again), but I can guarantee that despite the review embargo lifting this morning-on the day it’s supposed to premiere in theaters-it’s actually a fun ride. Until these people find that key element to destroying these aliens, SHHHHHH!