The Silence review:

The short answers to those questions are “yes” and “not exactly.”

If you’ve happened to stumble across The Silence while scrolling through Netflix, you probably have a few questions. Like…isn’t this just A Quiet Place?

Should I watch this?

Directed by John R. Leonetti (Annabelle, Wish Upon), Netflix’s new horror movie releases violent, sound-attracted creatures called Vesps that escape from a cave and begin terrorizing big cities across America. Running for cover, Hugh Andrews (Stanley Tucci) leads his family to the woods, where there is less noise to draw the monsters.

They also haven’t considered how bringing the family dog might be a bad strategy.

Their quest is aided by the fact that the whole clan knows American Sign Language, following a car accident in which daughter Ally (Kiernan Shipka) lost her hearing.

More vexing, there’s little sense of momentum in The Silence. The family’s plan was very vague, to begin with so their journey has no specific destination and a muddled sense of progress.

This likewise stifles suspense.

The bad news is, The Silence is a terrible movie. The good news is, it’s so bad it’s good. The Silence has just enough perplexing choices and bumbled executions to be satisfying.

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss scene, an old woman threatens the group with a gun for trespassing. She is somehow unaware that her property is absolutely crawling with monsters because her voice immediately summons a swarm of monsters that lift her into the air and dump her in a well.

Generally speaking, horror movie creatures are either extremely small but overwhelming (Slither, The Birds), or large enough that just one is terrifying (Jaws, Godzilla). If a movie goes for something in-between, it’s usually a horror-comedy (Gremlins). The Vesps fall into this middle category. (Looking back watching the movie, Culturedemandsgeeks would think all you’d need are a few conveniently placed wood-chippers and the Vesps would be made into mincemeat in a day or two.)

If there’s anything you should be concerned about in regards to The Silence, it’s the fact that this thing is riddled with plot holes.

An entire family leaves a guy for dead and nobody reacts.

The Andrews family has a quick scuffle involving guns at a gas station with a random man. Obviously, they have to protect themselves, so it’s not terribly surprising that they injure and disarm him. But then they all pile into the minivan and leave.

Nobody eats.

I don’t even run to the bank without packing snacks, so I am baffled by the fact that the Andrews family just hops in their car to flee town without any snacks.

The whole antibiotics plot.

The killer bird things (called Vesps) attack Kelly, the mom, and everyone agrees that she needs “antibiotics” so her gnarly leg wounds don’t become infected. Ally and her father, Hugh, head to a nearby town to search a drugstore for “antibiotics.”

This plot line was confusing because the grandmother is just acting like she has a medical history and her diagnosis is just like, “Yeah, antibiotics.” It’s pretty confusing. Not to mention…do you know what kinds of side effects you might suffer if you take the wrong antibiotics? Vomiting and diarrhea.

How quickly do cults form?

The timeline of The Silence is basically nonexistent. We really don’t get any indication as to how long the Vesps have been attacking the world. It kind of feels as though it’s been only a few days…but there’s already a fully formed cult of people without tongues who are trying to repopulate the earth.

Culturedemandsgeeks, have no idea how long it normally takes to establish a cult, (we Googled) but it seems suspicious.

It just doesn’t seem realistic, if you ask us.

Ally just FINDS Rob.

Toward the end of the movie, the Andrews family realizes that Vesps can’t live in the cold, so they should try to move somewhere icy. In the end, we just see Ally frolicking through a snowy forest with her high school crush, Rob. She has longer hair, so we can assume it took a while for them to find each other and reach the cold, but we never learn how that happened (we smell a sequel!)

Also, by the time Ally gets to the cold, Vesps have evolved to still live there and she’s just like, “Yeah, they evolved!”

NICE SCENES:

After a half-hearted attempt to free family friend Glenn (John Corbett) from a crashed car, Hugh leaves him for dead. Lying in the wreckage, Glenn can hear the Andrews’ car being pelted by Vesps. With an expression bordering on eye-roll, he fires off a few shots to lure the monsters to him, sacrificing himself for the family. And so does old grandma, where she sacrifices herself for the safety of her granddaughter.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Netflix’s ‘The Silence’ Has a LOT of Confusing Plot Holes and Is Basically ‘A Quiet Place’ and less terrifying. The Silence is based on a book by Tim Lebbon, which predates A Quiet Place. While that’s good to know, it doesn’t change the fact that A Quiet Place executed the concept first and better. But if you’re interested in a low-impact horror movie to watch with friends in a crazy B-movie night full of popcorn and soda, The Silence might suit your silliest needs.