a quiet place part II
DIRECTOR John Krasinski STARRING Millicent Simmonds, Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Noah Jupe, John Krasinski ETA 20 March 2020 4 September 2020
When Total Film visited the set of this much-anticipated sequel to 2018’s surprise hit we discussed how what we do in a disaster defines us with writer/director Krasinski. “I think that’s weirdly comforting that it’s about how we react to the world, rather than letting the world around us define us,” he mused prophetically, having spent lockdown creating a good-news YouTube series. “I just love how audiences put themselves in this world [when they watch].” Clearly the audience experience of watching an isolated family (Mum, Emily Blunt, trying to keep her three kids safe) struggle to survive in a world where sound-tracking aliens have decimated the population and society will be different post-Covid-19, but Krasinski has always said both movies are not necessarily about the horror: “The beauty of genre is that it keeps you at an arm’s length, which allows you to deal with whatever’s on the screen in a filtered way.” Rather they’re about family and the importance of community. “If the first one was about the promise that you make to your kids – ‘If you stay with me, I’m safe’ – the second one is about the inevitability of that promise being broken.” GO BIG SCREEN Need that pin-drop silence of an entire audience on tenterhooks to really feel the terror. The ambient noise of the neighbours arguing isn’t going to cut it.