Death Angels

**Death Angels**, often referred to simply as "The Creatures," and "The Listeners" by survivors, are a race of extraterrestrial creatures who serve as the primary antagonists in *A Quiet Place* and *A Quiet Place Part II*. They arrived on Earth through what humans refer to as an invasion inside a meteorite, and started attacking anything that makes even the faintest noise.

## Biology

According to John Krasinski, the director of the movies, the creatures originated on a lightless planet in a faraway galaxy, a hell world with much harsher conditions and higher gravity than Earth. This pushed their evolution to develop features such as relying on echolocation instead of sight, possessing impenetrably hard armor, and greater strength in Earth's gravity. Their armor is so tough it can resist all conventional human weaponry, from small firearms such as a shotguns to missiles, and even bombs and fire. They can destroy steel and any hard object. Due to the tradeoffs of these features, however, they are completely blind — and their dense armor and musculature is so heavy that they cannot swim in water.

The creatures are slightly taller than a human, with overall proportions that are lithe and lean. Their body posture vaguely resembles a cross between a gorilla and a flightless bat: all four of their limbs are digitigrade, walking on their knuckles, with arms drastically larger than their legs — resulting in them usually running on all four limbs but capable of rearing up to attack or jump large distances. Due to their claws and great strength, they are very adept at climbing on walls and able to run extremely fast. Their claws are able to slash the victims, which can kill them instantly.

Their head features a large jaw filled with sharp teeth, and no eyes. With no apparent nose, it is unclear if they possess any sense of smell, or if smell perception is achieved through sense organs in the mouth. The entire head is externally composed of multiple sections of armor plates that protected their ears from any weapons. Their armor plates can be held open if they want to listen more closely for prey or detect the sound — unfolding like a hellish cabbage. The delicate ears underneath the armor are vulnerable to conventional weapons, explaining why they only briefly lift their plates if they feel safe enough to do so when tracking an enemy or prey.

Their extremely sensitive hearing can be turned into a weakness, as Regan discovered that their ears are so delicate that high-frequency sound waves (generated from a hearing aid) will make them uncontrollably squeal in pain and spasm, accidentally opening up the armor plates on their ears and exposing the vulnerable skin underneath, which allows humans to easily kill the creatures. If the high-pitched noises are loud enough, they could cause a Death Angel to temporarily collapse from the pain.

As confirmed by Krasinski, the aliens are not sapient, but vicious animals. Just how intelligent they are is unclear, as they mostly seem driven by pure instinct, though the Abbotts' whiteboard speculates that they are capable of hunting in packs. Besides, when one was killed, another came running to the location of its death, with no exception.

Perhaps most frustratingly, the creatures *do not* kill for food: the Abbotts' whiteboard includes the prominent note, "Why don't they eat their prey?", and they are never seen eating any of the corpses they leave behind: all human corpses were seen mummified but otherwise intact. They don't seem intelligent enough to kill for sadism, rather it seems that they just instinctively lash out at anything that creates noise. It's possible that they *cannot* eat their prey, because their biology might be incompatible with terrestrial animals. Nonetheless, they are so robust that they survived a long interstellar journey on asteroids (possibly in a state of hibernation), so it might take years for them to actually starve to death.

## History

### Pre-Series

At some point, the creatures' planet was destroyed for unknown reasons, but due to their durable nature and hard armor, they survived on asteroid fragments, which eventually arrived on Earth in a meteor shower and fall into several cities such as Millbrook, Mexico and Shanghai.

### *A Quiet Place*

The Death Angels are responsible for Beau's death at the beginning of the film. They are also seen hunting in the Abbott household when Evelyn's water breaks and she accidentally stabs her foot with a nail in the basement stairs. A Death Angel was nearing Evelyn in the bathroom when she was about the give birth to her son but was distracted away due to Marcus setting off a firework. Lee's death was at the claws of a Death Angel, albeit it was to protect Regan and Marcus to help Evelyn. A Death Angel was shown in the finale when their weakness, high-pitched frequency waves, was shown, and killed by Evelyn. Two more came running to the farm after his death, implying they were killed too.

### *A Quiet Place Part II*

In the opening scene, Death Angels are seen slaughtering the inhabitants of Millbrook, a New York town, on the first day they landed on Earth by a meteor. at the start of the attack (not long after the meteor landed near Millbrook) one of them attacked a police car of a local officer causing panic in main street, then another attacked and destroyed a station wagon just in front of Evelyn's car which also claw her front window, and another killed a driver of a bus which caused it to about ram over Evelyn, Marcus, and Beau though they were able to avoid it but the bus hit her car. In the ensuing chaos, a Death Angel was able to continue rampaging the town killing a few inhabitants, just as Lee, Regan, and most of the inhabitants went to a nearby bar to avoid being killed. They hid in tables and tried to stay silent as possible to avoid Death Angels, as Lee tried to silence a praying man and they witnessed one of Death Angel walk slowly and open their armor to track the sound. However, a teenage couple's phone accidentally rings, alerting the Death Angel outside and killing a few people in the bar just as Lee and Regan escaped the bar with the Death Angel pursuing them. As Lee and Regan approach the damaged police car where Evelyn, Beau, and Marcus are hiding, the Death Angel tries to kill them but Ronnie, the local police officer, saves them by trying to shoot by his shotgun at the creature. Despite his best efforts, the shots are no match for the creature's impenetrable armor but the shotgun's sound distracts the Death Angel and the officer decides to sacrifice himself to save the family.

In the present, a Death Angel was shown chasing the Abbott family and Emmett when Evelyn accidentally set off Emmett's booby trap and Marcus gets his foot severely injured in a bear trap at outside of his base, an abandoned factory, Regan set the speaker with her high-frequency feedback to disorient the Death Angel plate and Evelyn killed the creature. A Death Angel was shown hunting Regan when she encountered an abandoned train, where it attempts to kill her. Regan uses her high-frequency feedback to disorient the creature along with her shotgun, though it is only able to damage the creature's armor. The creature tries to kill Regan, but she was saved by Emmett. When Regan and Emmett are confronted by a group of feral humans while searching for a boat on the docks, Emmett makes a noise to attracts two Death Angels where they slaughter the deranged inhabitants. Emmett then stabs the leader with a knife to allow the creature to kill him before jumping off to avoid being killed. The Death Angel hopped on a boat and killed more humans but later drowned as it jumped on the water and trying to get back on the boat, while the other got into the same boat. A Death Angel got into Emmett's base, leading to Marcus and his brother accidentally trapping themselves in a furnace-turned-bunker, nearly suffocating them. Next day, Emmett hears the sound of boat crashed and discovered that the Death Angel was on the damaged boat snuck onto the island and attacked the island survivors before being lured by the leader, Emmett and Regan towards the radio station where the leader got killed by it before Regan was able to use her cochlear implant to broadcast a high pitch frequency across the local area to stun the death angels and make them reveal their vulnerable spot, allowing Regan to kill the creature on the island and also for Marcus to kill the creature in Emmett's base.

## Behind the Scenes

### Trivia

* The population of Death Angels on Earth is unknown. There were approximately 3-5 Death Angels in Millbrook. Each meteorite may have brought a few Death Angels.
* The aliens don't have an official name; the name "Death Angels" comes from a headline that appears on the Abbott family's wall of newspaper clippings.
* The Death Angels have two weaknesses.
	+ The Death Angels are unable to swim, and quickly drown in deep water. It's unknown whether Death Angels are able to survive underwater.
	+ The Death Angels are unable to withstand particularly high frequency sounds which cause the armor on their heads to open and their ears to be exposed. This allows the Abbots to kill Death Angels by shooting them in the head.
* John Krasinski provided some motion capture for the Death Angels in the films.
* The Death Angels were designed by *A Quiet Place*'s special effects supervisor Scott Farrar. The CGI for the Death Angels was done by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM).
	+ The design of the Death Angels was inspired by bog people (corpses who are buried in peat bogs).