Excellent horror

Rating: 9/10 (1 May 2018)

Savagely violent reptilian monsters have decimated the human race in short order. They are blind, and hunt by sound. So survivors the Abbott family (Mum, Dad, daughter Regan and sons Marcus and Beau live in remote woods in near silence. 15-year old Regan is profoundly deaf, so they all sign. Dad tries to build hearing aids for Regan, but does not have a good relationship with her following an incident early in the film. But Mom is pregnant and babies cry...
This film, directed, co-written and starring John Krasinski and his real-life wife Emily is a simple idea, used to create 90 minutes of solid tension with a minimum of dialogue. The setting is very photogenic, the sound design is important and effective, and all the small cast are excellent.
I should single out Millie Simmonds (deaf in real life), whose troubled Regan is unhappy, angry, and heart-breaking, and Noah Jupe, constantly in fear of the terrifying creatures which inhabit his world. The creatures are used sparingly and rarely glimpsed initially, but they are genuinely scary and nasty. They are never explained, but this doesn't really matter.
There are other things which could do with some explanation, though - why is it necessary to go barefoot? How come the creatures can pick small domestic sounds out of the wealth of "wild" sound in the natural world. These don't really matter, though, in a simple but powerful film with an exceptionally good tiny cast.
Well done, John Krasinski.