A silent creep.

Rating: 9/10 (24 April 2018)

A Quiet Place is the directorial debut for John Krasinski who also plays the main character, Lee Abbott. The family Abbott now lives in a post apocalyptic future where strange alien creatures have invaded. They can't see or smell well but are excellent in hearing, so far that they can track down potential prey with the sound of a little electronic toy. This family must now survive in this world making as little noise as possible. They don't wear shoes, eat out of leaves instead of plates and in my opinion the most interesting and unconventional aspect, speaking through sign language. A Quiet Place was a really unsettling and suspenseful film, mainly because it was quiet. Sounds that are made stand out so much that it honestly hurt my ears. The sound design is excellent, loud and irritating. This helps to build up the suspense and fear. The actors were also believable in their respectable roles, John Krasinski plays the caring husband and father. He has to keep his family together and protect them, however there is a deep frustration hidden beneath this character, in fact within all of the characters. Sometimes you can see that he wants to burst out but he can't, this frustration is captured beautifully by glances, groans and other small emotes. Krasinski real life wife, Emily Blunt also plays his wife in the film Evelyn. She is the caring mother, that must show strength and shelter to her children. There is also the sense of panic and terror hidden beneath her eyes. Blunt is an actress that is often unappreciated at large Award ceremonies such as the Oscars. This is unfortunate as she shows here once again how excellent she really is. This film is told with very little dialogue, mainly through facial emotes and sign language. The fact that all actors remain so believable with so little dialogue is commendable. Krasinski also shows himself to be a talented director, he sets up potential challenges really well for example a nail poking out, that could potentially later be a danger. The creatures themselves unfortunately weren't that scary or interesting, big CGI monsters. They didn't evoke this feeling of terror and phobia like the xenomorph did in the original Alien films. There was one interesting element towards the end that got me thinking about the creatures and I wished a little more of this. However this is really nitpicking, the film itself is excellent, a great creature feature in the vein of Jaws, Alien and Predator. What pushes this film over the edge onto being a great film is that it has elements of mainstream cinema, it does have jump scares (that were a little irritating) but also some great artistic choices. Most prominently the choice of very little dialogue. Overall this is a memorable, unsettling and frightening experience that I would highly recommend to fans of good horror / thrillers, creature films and good films in general.