I wish I had loved it like most other people seemed to

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2018)

I was very excited when I walked into my college town's decrepit movie theater to see 'A Quiet Place'. The first trailer really sparked my interest in this movie, and although the next couple of trailers and teasers definitely decreased my hype in this film, its great scores from critics as well as the word of mouth reviews for it really helped raise my enthusiasm for it to high levels. Maybe it was unfair to be so hyped for this movie. Maybe it couldn't ever live up to my pretty lofty expectations. At the same time though, there is no way in the world that this movie deserves an 80+ rating on Metacritic and a near 100% fresh rating on rotten tomatoes. The biggest problem for me is that for a thriller/horror film, this movie does very little to establish and use tension. It doesn't have an effective score like last year's incredible 'It Comes At Night' does to keep its audience on their toes. In fact, lots of the movie has no score whatsoever, which can also be used to really ratchet up the tension. Unfortunately, this film does almost nothing with sound design and background noise to try to be scary either. Think about the droning of the whooshing winds in many Lynch films like 'Eraserhead', or the sounds of the aliens breaking into and rummaging around in the house during the (far superior) invasion film 'Signs'. These movies know how to be suspenseful without even showing anything scary on screen, but 'A Quiet Place' has no clue how to do this. It prefers to just be completely silent at points instead of being nerve-racking. I like that the movie isn't scared to be nearly silent and dialogue free, but it shouldn't come at the expensive of removing the audience's fear and suspense. It also screws up by fully displaying the creatures early on and throughout much of the film. I know this is about as cliched as can be, but look at how effective Ridley Scott's classic 'Alien' is at disguising the titular Xenomorph. Never, throughout pretty much the entire movie, is the alien unobscured or fully seen. It hides in the shadows and lets us use our imagination, which is far scarier than anyone (even the brilliant mind of H.R Giger, who essentially inspired most of Alien's design) can come up with. Imagination is and always will be scarier than anything that can be shown on a movie screen.
This movie is also poorly written and cliched as (bad word that imdb won't let me say). It has the typical dumb kid at the start who honest to God is just the worst. It has a bratty little girl who is pretty much a (bad word for female dog) because it's convenient for the plot (even though the movie tries to use a very generic excuse as to why she's allowed to be an angry little brat). At one point the monsters kill a character right next to a car, and instead of just being silent in the car the characters just (bad word) drive away in it, and somehow these inconsistent as (bad word) monsters don't hear them. I'm sorry, but no matter how much (bad word) sand you put on the ground, or how hard you try to muffle your stupid baby's screams two feet away from these things, they should be able to hear you with their supersonic sound detection that can hear a freaking metal object hit the ground a billion miles away. It's just so inconsistent that I just could not suspend my sense of disbelief any longer. Also, this movie has the most generic, cliched, and cringeworthy movie ending I've ever seen in a so-called "masterpiece of horror". It has an overdramatic zoom into a character's face, a cringe inducing one liner, and a fade to black. I'm not exaggerating when I say me and about 7 of my friends (who all actually really enjoyed the movie) all busted out laughing at this garbage of an ending. And this isn't even mentioning how (bad word) cliched the monster's weakness is. Like seriously, watch the trailer, take what you know from that, and guess the most generic and cliched weakness the monster could have. You more than likely guessed correctly. I honestly do not think that Jim from the office could have had a more generic take on this concept if he tried. I don't hate everything. The movie is pretty well/competently acted by everyone involved (although the kids are not really asked to do much here). There are a few genuinely squeamish and 'nail' biting scenes scattered throughout this movie. It is boringly yet competently made from a purely directorial aspect. The CGI monsters actually look pretty amazing for the most part. But man oh man, this movie could have just been so much more. Overall I think "disappointingly average" is the best term I could use to describe this film.