A Return To Horror Roots, But Doesn't Always Fit In

Rating: 6/10 (18 April 2018)

In 1979, a film called 'Alien' was released in theatres and immediately grossed out film-goers with gratuitous body horror and a hideous, yet believable example of alien life.
But the reason Alien emerged above the cesspool of 70's exploitation and into the pantheon of great Horror, great Sci-Fi, and great Sci-Fi Horror, is that beneath it was an intelligent film that took horror away from that aforementioned 70's, ultraviolent cesspool, and a return to the roots of what made horror great. In short, it succeeded by pleasing both fans of new, violent horror, and classical, spooky horror.
Nearly 40 years later, A Quiet Place intends to make that same return to roots. In the 'found footage' age, this is the work of a filmmaker trying to remind us of what horror is all about.
The entire premise is set up perfectly for this - the earth has been ravaged by bloodthirsty monsters which, use their superior hearing faculties to hunt down human life.
The last remaining humans are our silent protagonists. They have learned to speak in sign language and make as little noise as possible in order to survive. This premise sets up some interesting factors, but some immediate problems:
First, silence becomes a major theme of this movie. The lack of sound allows your brain to focus more heavily on the visuals, which is a shame, because this movie could have been more of a visual spectacle than it could have been, allowing the character's emotions and facial expressions. When compared to the films of, say, Kubrick, this is not as apparent as it could have been. However, in an age of films that lay an auditory assault on the audience with excessive music, dialogue and ambience, the silence of A Quiet Place is a nice break.
But it also poses some questions. Why are they all speaking sign language? Did they quickly learn? Did they develop their own sign language? Or was it a case of Survival of the Fittest where the only survivors were the people smart enough to learn it?
This leads me to my two main problems with the film - the characters aren't explored and the film doesn't really answer many questions. Questions like who are these people? Are they related? Why is she suddenly out in the cornfield? Why is she walking around by herself when there are killer monsters lurking everywhere? Why is everyone constantly splitting up despite the fact that the great danger should warrant them sticking together? What is that ear device? How did they discover it? Is she deaf? How did he discover that the device can harm the monsters?
This leads me to my next problem - there's so many Deus Ex Machinas in the film - there's no clever writing telling how the ear device solution came to be. The end of film has the protagonist kill the monster with a shotgun, which never seemed like an option before. The monster is unable to reach the children hiding under a metal panel, despite the fact that the monster is proven capable of smashing through a metal wall, and could have simply flipped the panel over like a pancake. The monsters always know when to conveniently slow down, to give the time for the protagonists to escape, despite the fact that the introductory sequence shows how their incredible speed is what makes them so terrifying. Part of what made the Xenomorphs in Alien such a frightening adversary was their uncompromising ruthlessness. These were biological machines designed to kill. The monsters here, on the other hand, just seem like dumb, fumbling creatures.
That's not bad on it's own, but what I'm saying is, the quiet, contemplative moments of the film (of which there are many) are nice, but the crescendos into action pieces are filled with too much implausibility, cliches and poor editing finesse in order to be effective. The film could have benefited less from the poor attempts at Jurassic-Park style monster chase sequences, and more from the claustrophobic intensity apparent in certain scenes, such as the flooding, childbirth and nail sequence.
Wait a minute, all those scenes feature Emily Blunt's pregnant character, yet they're all the best scenes! Why is this? Perhaps because it's the character's vulnerable situation that exemplifies what horror is all about. Horror is not about jump-scares, blood and gore and disgusting monsters. Horror is about being in a vulnerable situation and not knowing what is going to happen. It's why horror-themed video games give you little in the name of weaponry. Blunt's character exemplifies effective horror because we sympathise with her situation. We share some of her pain.
The problem is that the other characters don't have the same effect. The children seem to love going off by themselves for no apparent reason and they lack the same fragility you should expect from children. The father is a generic male protagonist where, unlike good male protagonists, his strengths aren't balanced out by his weaknesses. The film suffers from lack of dialogue where it should have triumphed. It could have used the action to give you a better idea of who these people really are, instead of just a generic family fleeing from the big bad.
Or, it could have used the lack of dialogue to paint a more vivid picture of this frightening new world. In a scenario where even reaching up the pantry for dinner plates is a potentially life-or-death situation, this could have lended itself to plenty of those same claustrophobic sequences instead of generic chase moments.
But more importantly, the film doesn't really ask anything of its viewer. It doesn't really ask much about what it means to be deaf, or mute, or living in a post-apocalyptic situation. The plotline is a tool for the action, instead of being an essential part of what yo're seeing.
In conclusion, I feel like this is a movie that doesn't really know what it wants to be. On one hand, it wants to be a genre-bending take on classic horror philosophy, on the other hand it wants to be a riveting, heart stopping popcorn chase. This film could have been shocking, controversial, cynical, disturbing and many other qualities which I believe would have helped it, but it's apparent that the filmmaker didn't want to go in that direction beyond one sequence in which a child is killed. The characters are bland, the monster is not hugely frightening, the ending is strangely 'badass' for a horror, and, although it tries, and succeeds on many levels, overall I don't think it captures the essence of what makes horror great. Horror should revolt you, but also attract you. It should make you crave the moment it ends and you can return to the safe, happy real world, but also inwardly crave the experience again. This movie didn't really do that. It was over before I knew it, at only 90 minutes (which is another problem, as I think this film would have benefited from a longer runtime in order to establish the farm location as a character unto itself) but when it did end, there wans't the same satisfaction that horror should provide - it's 90 minutes of generic people battling against a generic foe, without much structure to take the audience through those 90 minutes. Well, there is structure, but it basically goes like this:
Heroes Are Safe
Heroes Make Noise, Monster Comes
Heroes Avoid Monster
Heroes Are Safe
Heroes Make Noise, Monster Comes
Heroes Avoid Monster
Heroes Are Safe
Heroes Make Noise, Monster Comes
Heroes Avoid Monster
And for a movie with such an interesting initial concept, it could have benefited from a lot more.