A QUIET PLACE REVIEW: Just how quiet do you have to be to survive?

Part B-movie creature feature, part B-movie creature feature (yes, I said it twice!), A Quiet Place is a gleeful combo platter of horror tropes that manages to be something that’s both derivative and yet undeniably unique.

Directed by and starring John Krasinski (in his third foray behind the camera), alongside his real-life wife Emily Blunt, it’s a film that’s seething with parental anxieties and adolescent rage — take out the monsters and the film could be a credible domestic drama about the damage that can be caused when families don’t communicate (first scene, folks!)

Our story begins 89 days after some unexplained catastrophe has reduced America (and perhaps the entire world) to a post-apocalyptic ghost town, in which the few survivors live in self-enforced silence, lest they attract the attention of hideous, near-indestructible beasts who are completely blind but enticed by sound. (If you want to speak, scream, then make sure the sound you are emitting is lower than another sound if you want to survive, so don’t go screaming your head off — if you’re not by a waterfall or fast flowing river!)

Lee and Evelyn (Mr Krasinski and Emily Blunt) and their three children communicate urgently in sign language, and the youngest child’s interest in a battery-operated toy causes immediate alarm.

Their fear is palpable, but what are they afraid of?

Thanks to that darned toy, we’re about to find out, in a perfectly executed attack sequence that establishes the stakes, and the family’s plight, with swift efficiency.

Now minus one and watched by flapping posters of other missing souls, the Abbotts return to their farm as the story (by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck) leaps forward more than a year.

Above: Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds in a silo full of problems!

Krasinski and Blunt’s characters are perhaps better equipped to deal with this new status quo than most, since one of their kids is deaf (played by deaf actress Millicent Simmonds, who’s utterly magnificent), meaning that the family is already accustomed to using sign language.

To say much more would be to spoil the film’s many delights, but it’s probably safe to assume that things escalate quickly, and while there are moments of levity to help release some of the audience’s jitters, this is a film that’s determined to get a reaction out of you, and proves very skilled at doing so.

It’s a movie designed to make you an active participant in a game of tension, not just a passive observer in an unfolding horror.

Above: Emily Blunt, needs help giving birth.

The bulk of “A Quiet Place” takes place over a year later, as the family continues to grieve and the mother is about 38 weeks pregnant. Preparing for the arrival of a new-born baby in a world without noise is difficult, and the father continues to pore over newspaper articles and research, looking for a way to stop the creatures that kill at the slightest sound.

A Quiet Place is far from the first horror project to use silence as a conceit — let’s not forget the iconic Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode ‘Hush.’

But it’s clearly fertile ground for filmmakers to explore our fears about being unable to express ourselves, and Krasinski makes the most of the premise in ingenious ways.

Even mundane tasks like driving, walking down creaky stairs, or taking a pill become fraught with tension when the slightest noise could mean your immediate and grisly demise, and that’s not even counting the basic human reflexes to laugh, or cry, or yelp when you’re in pain.

The movie does a remarkable job of finding increasingly dire situations to put its characters in (poor Blunt, in particular, is put through the wringer), and while Krasinski wisely keeps the monsters offscreen for the most part, seen only in brief flashes or from a distance for the first two acts to heighten the stress, the visual effects are surprisingly impactful when we finally get a good look at them.

Krasinski’s direction is assured and often artful here; while the film unrepentantly relies on jump scares for its biggest shocks, the actor-director (who also has a writing credit on the film, along with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck) still manages to establish an unrelenting tension that breaths in every scene.

This is not one of those films that mistakes shaky camerawork for horror storytelling. It’s got a refined visual language that plays beautifully with perspective and the terrifying nature of a world in which we can’t yell to warn/find people or, in the case of the deaf daughter, hear what’s coming.

The creatures are blind, hungry and navigate by sound. Possessed of craniums that roll open to expose a pulsing, wet membrane, they’re like skittering ear holes with pointy teeth and clattering appendages. Drawing from a variety of heritage horrors, including “Alien” and “Predator,” their design is familiar yet effective, their origin kept shrouded.

Above: Directed by and starring John Krasinski

At a brisk 95 minutes, A Quiet Place doesn’t waste too much time explaining the rules of this world beyond the obvious “noise = death” equation.

And are clues sprinkled throughout, but the whole thing takes a fairly Cloverfield approach of keeping us on a need-to-know basis.

And yet the depth of the world-building is impressive, given the limited narrative real estate — from the sensible way the family has modified a Monopoly board to make it quieter, to a genius light-based warning system, this world feels believably lived-in and not too far removed from our own.

It also helps that Krasinski displays a sense of composition and economic storytelling that he hasn’t really before in other films. “A Quiet Place” is a no-nonsense, lean movie—the best kind when it comes to thrillers.

But…

Not everything makes sense, especially in terms of what the monsters can hear and when?

There were many times in the film when some member of the titular family should have died, and not just on one occasion (numerous times).

The film’s other shortcoming is its score, relying on screeching cues to signpost its scares; at some points the music is so overwrought, it drowns out the drama instead of heightening it. So much, so “A Quiet Place” feels at odds with a musical score that too often wants to tell us when to jump, and how high.

The film’s opening scene is presented almost entirely without music, and you can’t help but wonder whether A Quiet Place would’ve been more effective if it relied only on slight sounds, rather than a traditional score.

“A Quiet Place” feels like this year’s “Get Out.” Both are horror films from a newer director, both are great in it’s own right.

But…

Culturedemandsgeeks left the screening feeling a tad disappointed in the last few scenes, and the niggling problems that persist with ‘when’ and ‘how’ the monsters attack, slightly ruined the quality of the film.

3/5 STARS