Not a bad movie, all-in-all

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2018)

This isn't a bad movie, all-in-all. I felt that many members of the cast did an excellent job and were very believable in their (slightly overdrawn perhaps) characters. The sets were nicely done. The special effects were not cheesy, and while the plot seemed to spend a long time focusing on the interplay of characters in the first house, it still kept my interest. All of this makes the movie certainly watchable...especially if you, like me, have a bad cold and are looking for something new and interesting.
Now for the cons. Sorry that I'm being nit-picky here. I KNOW it's hard for an author to write a believable story; it's much easier to pick one apart. However, I've seen other movies based on a similar concept (sound), but I had a harder time suspending disbelief that people could somehow function in a post-apocalyptic world without the use of vision. The "string" method used by the heroine to retrace her steps was clever, but I live in a rural area, and walking through the woods and avoiding snakes, holes, and fallen limbs even WITH eyesight can be a challenge. I have had rather poor vision since childhood, and it would be slightly dangerous for me to take a walk even without my glasses, and even sighted people often get lost. Just one wrong step and you'd find yourself sliding down a hill, stepping on some dangerous piece of debris, or smacking into a tree. Yet somehow these people are walking through woods, getting a boat into a river, planting a little garden (!). Could it be done? Possibly, but it wouldn't be easy. Just flip over that boat and there's a good chance a snake is going to be underneath it! Driving the car seemed equally unbelievable. With all the debris on the road, the car would have had a flat pretty quickly, and what's the chance that a random car would have all those proximity warning lights? Okay, okay....nice house, wealthy family probably has a new car, etc.
There is also a matter about the blindfolds. They would have to be just the right fabric. If the fabric is too loosely-woven, you may be able to actually see through the holes in the fabric. Again, I have rather poor eyesight. As a child, I found it funny that looking through the small holes in loosely-woven fabric actually helped my eyes focus a little better. Maybe that's just my vision, and that wearing a blindfold might actually be WORSE for me in such a world.
Finally, the ending just dropped the ball a bit. Okay, they're in a school for the visually impaired. Great place to be. It's full of people. Great. Where's the food to feed all those folks coming from? Where's the water coming from? What happens when the "bandits" attack? There are still the same basic survival problems that the people faced in the house. Who are the monsters and what exactly makes a person one of their minions, anyway? (We get a hint of this, but no solid answers.)
So, to sum up. I really DID enjoy this movie. I felt that acting was VERY well done, and I'd watch it again.