April 6, 2018 2 min to read

A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place is really impressive, and built around brilliant sound-design.

by Zach Saul

Jon Krasinski has it all these days, a beautiful and talented wife (Emily Blunt), and an endless stream of syndication money from The Office, and now a blossoming directorial career. A Quiet Place works because it avoids the tropes most monster movies use and instead, “the idea of a parasite introduced into an ecosystem” (Krasinski’s words) inspires the action. The movie is essentially built around an ingenious sound design - and an exploration of their silent universe. It’s surprisingly ornate, and thoughtful as the family uses a sophisticated system of lights, sign language, soundproofing, and diversions to stay alive. Instead of yelling “run!!” every thirty seconds like you do it most horror movies, it feels like the creature and these people are on a semi-equal footing, adding intrigue to the fight.

The sound design in A Quiet Place is what really makes it special. In addition to being able to hear every slurp crunch and gulp in the theatre, its a markedly different visceral experience from most films. In A Quiet Place, you notice the wind, the floorboards, and even the sighs of all the characters and it changes the way you relate to their experience. There is dialogue and music in parts of the movie, but it’s sparse and used extremely carefully. As viewers, because of the hyper-focused perspective, it becomes easier to spot subtle changes in the environment like shadows in the distance, or beams of light.

Despite its tragic ending, A Quiet Place is a remarkably fun and entertaining movie both because the universe without sounds is foreign and intricate, and because the monsters adhere to a similar set of hyper-specific rules the family does. The monster is impenetrable until it opens its ears at which point it becomes vulnerable despite it’s heightened sensitivity. The family is at it’s most vulnerable when they’re apart, and unable to communicate, forcing them to scramble to save each other as Evelyn (Emily Blunt) goes into labor.

The Good: A Quiet Place is among the most inventive scary movies I’ve seen in my lifetime, and deserves recognition for its execution, and clever concept. The sound design of A Quiet Place feels genre-altering and it’ll be interesting to see how studios like Blumhouse (who has owned the scary genre for several years) respond.

The Bad: By his own admission, Krasinski omits a lot from A Quiet Place and doesn’t give you a backstory, or sociopolitical context. The mystery can occasionally feel frustrating but it also heightens your enjoyment of the action sequences.