Silence golden for tense terror
A Quiet Place (15)
They say you should never work with your spouse, but John Krasinski decided to not only star alongside wife Emily Blunt, but put her through the wringer in his third big screen directorial outing.
The couple play Evelyn and Lee Abbott who, along with kids Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and Beau (Cade Woodward), face a terrifying fight for survival as they are forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by noise.
I’ve long been a firm believer in the power of sound being a key factor in the very best of the horror genre; whether it’s John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween score, Leatherface’s chainsaw revving up, Freddy Krueger’s glove scraping along walls or the creaky floorboards and howling winds of The Haunting, there have been plenty of disturbing assaults on the ears to send shivers down spines.
But rarely has sound – or the lack thereof – been used as effectively as it is here as Krasinski shows a skill for his craft beyond his years.
The noise emanating from a child’s toy causes as much terror as any gunshot or late-night phone call and the director-and-star creates a world where every footstep could be a matter of life and death.
Bryan Woods and Scott Beck’s story gives very little away about the creatures – keeping any sign-language-led dialogue relating to them vague – and the film is all the better for it.
A lot of modern, effects-heavy horror flicks would show their hand early on, but not knowing exactly what is hunting down humanity here just adds to the tension.
And what tension it is, as Krasinski’s movie barely gives you a chance to relax and nibble a kernel of popcorn right from its brutal opening.
An inspired decision sees Regan – expertly played by young Simmonds – affected by deafness, which sees her share an unsettling affinity with the monsters she can’t hear coming.
Delving more into the plot would be entering spoiler territory and you deserve to go into A Quiet Place as oblivious as possible to the slowburn twists and turns.
Rest assured, though, that despite barely uttering a word, Krasinski and Blunt are in superb form, proving to be one of the finest, most believable husband-and-wife teams ever seen on film.
Mixing well with the lack of dialogue and unnerving silence is Marco Beltrami’s haunting piano-heavy score. Maybe as a massive horror fan I’m a little biased, but it’s hard to find any fault in Krasinski’s exercise in terror.
What makes it all the more remarkable is a premise so simple you wonder how it’s taken this long for someone to bring it to the big screen.
Saying more with actions, atmosphere and anxiety than most films do with thousands of words, A Quiet Place is sure to figure highly in many best of the year lists.