Beautiful new twist on a horror film

Rating: 9/10 (1 June 2018)

I've never been one to enjoy horror films until now. A Quiet Place utilizes silence to drive fear and suspense in the audience. Above all else it's a movie about family and how far you will go to protect them.
The films opening scene introduces us to a family 89 days after the world has encountered aliens that possess hypersensitive hearing killing off the majority of the human population. One of the few surviving and only family we are introduced to is the Abbott family who includes Lee and Evelyn Abbott and their children, Regan, Marcus, and Beau. We see first hand in a jaws like opening sequence with Beau and toy rocket ship why silence is necessary for their survival. Nearly one year later, Regan's relationship with her father is suffering. Despite repeated attempts and failures at fixing her hearing aids Lee continues to try, and in a way succeeds.
Director, costar, and co-writer (with Brian Woods and Scott Beck) John Krasinski dazzled us with a brilliant new twist on horror. The screenplay was eloquently done. The actors performances were incredible and the directors choices were well thought out. He even managed to score a tweet from the king of horror himself, Stephen King who said "A QUIET PLACE is an extraordinary piece of work. Terrific acting, but the main thing is the SILENCE, and how it makes the camera's eye open wide in a way few movies manage."
On screen wife and real-life wife Emily Blunt before reading the script recommended a friend for the role of Evelyn. After Emily read it she forced Krasinski to fire her and give her the part. In an interview with BBC Krasinski said "it was without a doubt the best collaboration I've ever had in my life." Watching the film we see and feel this chemistry between the two.
In the same interview with BBC John explained what he hoped would happen
and what did happen in the audience, saying "It's been really nice to see how quickly the audience becomes very much like the family in the film. Where people are eating popcorn opening up their candy and then realizing that the family can't make any sounds than you just watch as you know however many hundred people are in the audience just slowly put their popcorn down like this is gonna get me killed." As I sat in the theater myself I witnessed this. Another thing krasinski mentioned that should noted before going into this is that it's a quiet movie not a silent movie.
As a director, one choice Krasinski did that made the film more beautiful than
it already is, are the scenes from Regan's perspective. During these, the sound was removed to make us feel more connected with her character. The silence in the film breaks multiple times. This brings me to the film's soundtrack. Although music plays for only a small portion of the film they play typical heavy bass instruments to give a suspenseful feel during the alien scenes.
Nearly everything was thought out it in this film. Even though I would consider
this one of my favorite films it has it's small flaws. One major thing that I took notice to was the fact that they still have electricity a year after the initial alien attack. With this said I would recommend this film to everyone. If you are not a fan of horror but have a small part of you that wants to like it, just go.