A Quiet Place With a Roaring Audience

Erica Crosby, News Editor|May 10, 2018

A Quiet Place is a silent but terrifying thriller. John Krasinski directed and co-wrote this chilling PG-13 movie which hit theaters on April 6, 2018. Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a 96 percent “fresh” review score and 86 percent of the audience on Rotten Tomatoes said they enjoyed it too.

Many people know John Krasinski as his character “Jim” from the comedy series The Office. He is viewed as a comedic character as portrayed in the show. I was very interested in seeing how he would play the role of the father in A Quiet Place since it was a darker role for Krasinski–it turned out very successful for him.

So far, A Quiet Place has led the box office at no. 1 with total sales at 50 million–becoming this year’s second largest three-day opening, following close behind Black Panther. The film has also topped the box office higher than any Conjuring horror franchise movie, which is a very famous and popular horror franchise.

The movie starts off very quiet on “day 89” with five characters walking around a deserted supermarket store. Emily Blunt, the wife to John Krasinski, plays the mother, while Krasinski leads as the father. The characters later venture back to their home but run into trouble along the way.

The youngest son, played by Noah Jupe, brings a toy spaceship along with them on their journey back home and attracts the attention of a nearby creature. The characters throughout the movie speak in sign language in order to stay silent and remain safe from the creatures who are haunting them.

Even though it quiet throughout the entire movie, the silence added so much more to the suspense of the film and was an especially great opportunity for the director to add an unexpected jump scares. Your own heart pounding will be the loudest sound in the theater. The audio goes from quiet to loud with the intense sound effects used, instantly making the viewers want to listen in until there’s a jump scare… again.

All of the actors in the movie did a great job acting and portraying the roles of a family stuck in isolation. The camera follows the characters around and shows the audience the daily routines that they have to go through to keep safe from the creatures.

A Quiet Place was great for being so quiet, but the movie would have benefited from more background information on where the creatures came from, as well as why there were so few survivors.

John Krasinski pushed for Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actress to play one of the older daughter roles in the movie. Krasinski wanted this movie to flow together and be very real for the audience. Having Millicent Simmonds in the movie gave the film a big advantage, as sign language was the way the family communicated in order to not make noise throughout the film. Subtitles were provided for the audience to help follow along.

The film was shot over a 30 day time period and was shot in Dutchess and Ulster counties in upstate New York, along with some shots from a soundstage in the town of Pawling.

John Krasinski did an amazing job at directing this movie. Overall it was a very inventive and creative way for having most of the film be silent the whole time. Although the ending of the movie did leave the audience in a bit of a cliffhanger, prompting the question: will there be A Quiet Place 2?