A quiet, but sometimes loud monster movie

Rating: 6/10 (19 April 2018)

A quiet place is a fairly well shot monster movie thriller. There's not much more to it.
I've been a critic of the over-reliance of "jumps scares" in the past which is unfortunate as "A Quiet Place" is tailor made for that type of "scare" through sheer virtue of the plot point that the monsters track their victims through sound.
I was reminded of a scene in "The Babadook" where, in silence, our main character glances up to see the Babadook where it was not before. In "The Babadook" the silence is continuous and the sudden appearance of the monster was not accompanied by loud strings from the film's soundtrack to remind you to be scared. Unfortunately "A Quiet Place" uses that soundtrack stings at almost every scare in the film.
Despite this "A Quiet Place" isn't overly reliant on jump scares and spends effort driving up the tension through body language instead and close-up shots of character facial expressions rather than spoken dialogue. My favourite scene of the movie is a mother in labour tries to make no noise as to avoid certain death from the monsters while struggling with contractions for example.
There is also some good cinematography in the film as well. Nothing to go nuts over, but the shot composition isn't bland and clearly has some thought put into it.
The weakest part of the film is it's themes. I just found that there was nothing to take away from the film. Is there a message about communication due to the nature of the monsters, and having a deaf character in the movie? What about the protecting your family angle? I'm not sure, the film briefly touches on this , but it doesn't go anywhere by the end of the film.
"A Quiet Place" is a really good movie if you want your date to cling to your arm in the theatre, otherwise it can be streamed on a rainy day sometime in the future.