April 7th in Chicago, IL. Jim from "The Office" directs, stars and even had a hand in the screenplay of this horror film that also stars his real life wife Emily Blunt.
Set in the not too distant future, the earth has been invaded by aliens and the human race is now the hunted. The aliens hunt by sound and possess an armored exoskeleton that make them difficult to kill. The Abbotts are a typical family of 5 that are out one day scavenging. On their way back home, a moment of carelessness leads to the death of their youngest son.
Fast forward a year and Evelyn is pregnant, teenage daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds, who stole the show) is acting like a teenage girl and acting out against her parents. Since Regan is deaf, the Abbotts communicate via sign language and have taken painstaking measures to keep hidden from the aliens. Things breakdown and the aliens discover them just as Evelyn gives birth. Regan and brother Marcus are trapped out in the open by the creatures and Lee sacrifices himself in order to escape. Regan and Marcus escape to the house where Regan discovers the secret of how to fight the creatures (thanks to her father's work on hearing aids, showing how much he cared about her).
A Quiet Place had a budget of $17 million and took in over $50 million on its opening weekend. To date it has grossed over $176 million domestically and nearly $300 million worldwide. In terms of horror films, this picture is the 2018 equivalent to 2017's Get Out, which had a budget of $4.5 million and grossed over $255 million worldwide. Good company to be in. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 95% rating which is a few points too high. Mostly because of its parallels to War of the Worlds and Independence Day. The only other issue I had is the fact that Lee had been working on finding a weapon to battle the creatures and couldn't figure it out or at least know how close he was. Yet Regan, who was forbidden to enter Lee's workshop, figures out in a few minutes. There are also some small items like, how is the power grid still working? But that's getting nit picky.
Krasinski does a real nice job with the pacing and ratcheting up the tension. Krasinski also uses the "hide the monster" trope well. The creatures are shown in small glimpses until the final act. Plus there isn't a need to show a high body count in order to pad the run time, which comes in at a clean 90 minutes. The acting is solid, especially since there's no dialogue, adding to the tension. I especially enjoyed the fact that Lee didn't use a witty quip to draw the creatures from Marcus and Regan. This is a very good film that is worth watching.
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