Not a rip off of Quiet Place people...

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2019)

A Quiet Place was released in 2018, early in the year. This film was released the same year and its production started in October of 2017 and it is also based off a book from 2014 so no, this was not ripping off Quiet Place and if you think so, you are kind of dense thinking that a movie can be thrown together so quickly within a year and you don't bother to read anything otherwise you would know it was based off a book that predates Quiet Place. I have not seen Quiet Place, but I do want to, but I actually did minimal research to discover the origin of this film had nothing to do with that one as they were already in the works to making this film prior to even the book release back in 2013! If anything, Quiet Place may have stolen a couple of ideas from the novel this film is based on. Now what the film is much more like is The Happening, but with a much better thing causing people to take their own lives.
The story starts out as two sisters are about to visit the doctor as one of them is pregnant and not to thrilled about it. They see on the news that there is something going on in Russia where people are claiming their own lives. Well it quickly moves in and soon they are fleeing amid mass suicides as it appears that the ones who kill themselves see something that causes their abnormal behavior. One sister sees it and takes her life leaving behind the pregnant one played by Sandra Bullock. She is helped into a house where the people are smart enough to close the windows as it is clear something is seen before the urge to kill oneself occurs. They try to figure out what to do while at times we are taken ahead years in time as Sandra's character is now in charge of two kids and is trying to make her way down a river to a place offering safe haven.
While the film is not a ripoff of Quiet Place, it is also not perfect and suffers many flaws and questions. I figure the things they are seeing are demons as only something like that could possess a person and cause them to do the whole suicide thing and I can see a demon not being able to enter a house kind of like a vampire not being able to unless invited (in the book they apparently could enter houses). This was not one of the problems for me, but one thing that was, was the way the film played out. It starts by showing Sandra and the two kids thereby telegraphing that all is not going to go well at the house and that pretty much everyone is going to die. I also wanted to see the demons, but the only way we could have seen them is if the main protagonist had seen them and quite frankly, they probably would have been disappointing had they been seen. The ending was a bit too happy and still leaves one with questions too.
So, this was a pretty good Netflix original film. Certainly better than Open House and another one I saw about a haunted school, but I think I still give The Ritual the edge as far as best Netflix original horror film that I have seen. That one provided more atmosphere and tension than did this one. Still, it was entertaining for what it was.