A Quiet Place is a horror film which is rather more sophisticated than many movies in the horror genre. It's enjoyed a huge amount of success and a sequel has been made. The director is John Krasinski and he stars as well, alongside Emily Blunt. They play Lee and Evelyn Abbott, a married couple - and they are married in real life. I felt their performances were very good.
Together with their three children, Regan (who is deaf) and Marcus and Beau, the Abbotts have survived a global catastrophe. Blind aliens with exceptional hearing and vile tempers have taken over the planet and most people have succumbed to their murderous rampages. The Abbotts live in a remote spot in the forest and communicate by sign language. Generally, they are forced to take extreme measures to avoid making the sounds that will enable the creatures to hear and then kill them.
The film begins - well, quietly, I must say, before a terrible and dramatic moment of tragedy occurs. We then move forward in time by about a year. Evelyn is now pregnant (so what will happen when the new-born child cries? we wonder). The Abbotts are just about coping, but their lives are still severely constrained by the need not to make a sound that will attract the aliens.
This isn't a film that overdoes the melodrama. In fact, if anything it errs in the other direction and its claustrophobic mood is strangely low-key until near the end. I'd have liked more backstory and as a result of its absence, my response to the film is probably more subdued than that of its most fervent devotees. But it's a pretty good movie and, above all, an interesting and capable example of the 'less is more' style of writing.
I'm by no means a horror film fan - I'm too much of a wuss - but we saw this on Film 4 recently and greatly enjoyed it, probably because I wasn't really expecting to! I'll be looking out for the second one.
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