A Quiet Place

I’ve had an amazing burst of energy lately! I hope it shows with my more consistent posting. I’m beginning to take this blog a little bit more seriously. I’ve managed to change my social media handles to Nik or Treat as well. If you want to follow me on Instagram you can do so here and I’m also on Twitter here.

So back to the reason you clicked. A Quiet Place. My expectations were not particularly high because I’ve seen the stars (John Krasinski and Emily Blunt) in comedic roles. I’ve learned the hard way (a.k.a. the Lazarus Effect) that just because my comedic fave is in a horror movie doesn’t mean it’s going to be good. Even after people completely fawned over the movie at South by Southwest I was still not too sure if I would like it. Luckily, I was wrong, this movie was so entertaining.

This is about a family that has to stay silent in a post apocalyptic world in order to survive. Why? Because of the monsters! The creatures are blind, so they rely on sound to hunt humans and animals. Real life married people John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are the heads of the Abbott family. They have three children. A daughter who is unfortunately named Reagan, and two sons Marcus and Beau.

They use American sign language to communicate, which not only benefits Reagan as she is deaf, but doesn’t call attention to the family’s presence. They do other things to say silent, like walking barefoot and playing with toys without batteries. However, when their son Beau disobeys his father and plays with a very loud toy he finds on the ground....He gets killed by the alien creatures. Reagan blames herself for this. She gave the batteries back to Beau after her father took it away.

So, a year passes and the mom (named Evelyn) is about to give birth to a crying, loud, baby in a world that is silent out of necessity. They plan on raising this child by putting it in a separate box when it arrives. Reagan still Blames herself for what happened to her brother.

Lee, the father has spent an extensive amount of time making the final quiet. For example he shows which floorboards are the creaky ones. Sadly, the father and daughter have a bit of a rift. She still feels like he doesn’t love her because of what happened a year ago. Not only did she give Beau the toy, but she couldn’t hear him playing with it. Lee obviously still loves his daughter. He even tries to fix her hearing aid. He only takes Marcus out for survival training. This makes Reagan angry and it’s extra rude in Reagan’s eyes because Marcus is scared! Reagan actually wants to go out there and learn. Since Reagan deaf he sees taking her out in that situation as more of a hindrance than a help. Reagan goes to the place of her younger brother’s death. While the boys go out, Evelyn is home alone. She goes into labor, and she accidentally steps on a nail. Between labor pains and the nail, she makes noise.  She turns one of the alerts Lee set up. A normal colored lightbulb glows red. It also makes this buzzing kind of sound, aka more noise!

I was on edge in the theater, it was definitely my favorite part! Evelyn goes in the bathroom to give birth. 

Lee tells Marcus to create a distraction with fireworks so the monster will leave the Mom alone. Lee locates his wife and after initially finding nothing but blood in the bathroom. He finds her and the baby, they’re alright.

The children are waiting for their dad outside in this tower thing that stores corn. I know this thing has a proper name, but it’s just not coming to me. I grew up in the city. Anyway, they fall in. They hide from the monster after a very close call. Lee locates children but he ends up getting attacked by the monster from before. The monster starts to attack the children, who are trying to hide in a truck. This is where you find out what hurts the monster. The feedback from her hearing aid! And in an act of parental love Lee takes a firefighters axe and uses it to draw attention to himself rather than his kids. One of my hobbies is crying, so you already know I was 😭😭😭😭. 

Now fatherless, the kids roll down the hill and reunite with their mother and new sibling. This is the first time Reagan is allowed in the basement. She’s able to see all the things for dad worked on to keep her safe. She is also able to make the connection of the monsters reaction to the feedback and her father‘s work. A monster comes into the basement and she puts the hearing aid up to the stereo. The loud noise makes the creature retract it’s body armor and show it’s head. Evelyn is able to kill the monster with a gun. They look at the security cameras and see many more monsters are coming. Now that they know the weakness, they’re ready to fight.

I thought this movie was a great thriller. It had everything I appreciate in a movie. It was accessible, it contained a metaphor for something that’s scary in real life, unnecessary nonsense or nudity, and the horror was atmospheric rather than gory.

But I felt the entire pregnancy thing was dumb. From the conception to the delivery, quietness is a little too unbelievable. I get what they were trying to do and what they were trying to say with the pregnancy but the pregnancy aspect took me completely out of the story. Like I get it, I really do, but why bring a baby into that kind of world? Why subject it to that kind of life? Pull out, dummies!

I live for open endings even though I’m pretty picky about sequels. I think this will have a pretty decent sequel. If given the opportunity. But, I’ll be totally stoked if this was the only one. Actually, you know how the next Purge movie is going to be a prequel? That’s what I want for this. I want to see a prequel to A Quiet Place. Mostly because during the movie I wondered how...Like literally how? The earth is so loud... All the time, not even in a random toy going off kind of way. But, to be fair, if my family was in their situation this is how we would all die. Thanks Archer! Between radio frequencies, inexperienced engineers working their first live shows, white noise, and Donald Trump.....The world is loud AF! Even like the noise that comes after you shoot a gun, it’s loud!

Our military has sooo many weapons....like I refuse to believe that aliens could take us. I feel like if aliens wanted to murk us, they would get all of us at once, or the aliens would get got before they came to earth via a missile. As I said before, I was very scared of space when I was young. So, I’ve definitely thought this out. Between human beings and animals and animals not being quiet it should’ve taken way longer than 89 days to wipe all the people out. 

This movie kind of reminded me of Get Out. Seeing it in theaters is definitely an experience I’d recommend. But it’s the total opposite of Get Out. Everyone was talking and cheering when we saw Get Out. However, during A Quiet Place it was dead silent. And when anyone made any kind of noise it was not welcome.

Millicent Simmonds was the stand out of this film. I hope that the success of this movie shows Hollywood but you don’t have to hire actors that don’t have disabilities to play characters with disabilities. There are plenty of capable actors and actresses that have disabilities. My favorite being RJ Mitte from Breaking Bad. I feel like things are beginning to change in Hollywood. There’s a lot more diversity and I hope A Quiet Place will start the normalization of hiring disabled people to play these roles instead of able-bodied folks.

Do I think all movies where someone pretends to have a disability are bad? No! We stan Wait Until Dark over here! But, it’s still worth considering hiring disabled actors, or at least considering them when they audition actors.  

Stay Silent, Nik.

On that note, this movie proves you can read subtitles while enjoying a movie, so go watch a foreign film ASAP!