This past weekend something extraordinary happened. A cheap
monster horror film which is really an experimental art film brought
in $50 million at the American box office. How did this happen?
Somebody, possibly producer Michael Bay, sensed that audiences were
tired of generic blockbusters like “Pacific Rim: Uprising.” Somebody
saw potential in an odd, bleak script with very little dialogue and
somehow sensed that actor/co-writer John Krasinski (from “The Office”)
could pull everything together and direct a good film out of it, one
that people would want to see. Paramount Pictures released the film
on a weekend with no new big budget films coming out and made sure all
the critics saw it. A new smash hit was born!
“A Quiet Place” is about a family trying to survive in a grim
future where gigantic monsters are decimating mankind. The only way
to survive this situation is not to make any loud noises. This is
easier said than done, but the family (led by John Krasinski and Emily
Blunt) has a leg up because the daughter is deaf so they all know sign
language. Fatefully, the mother becomes pregnant. The film plays
largely without dialogue as the family struggles to survive.
The filmmakers behind “A Quiet Place” realize that the
audience not only wants an exciting, edge-of-your-seat experience but
also something that is unlike anything they’ve seen before. The result
will please fans of M. Night Shamalayan (sic) as well as monster movie
film buffs. The film is exciting, well-acted, original, and often
terrifying, yet subtle enough to get a PG-13. By the end of the film,
I felt that I had seen something worth going out of my way to see; the
audience was enraptured with the film and many applauded at the end.
If you see one horror film this year, make it “A Quiet Place.”