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The
reason that I was so worried about the noise level for this film was
because, as the title might suggest, it was going to be a quiet one.
Therefore any old wanker with a packet of crisps or a desire to chat
would ruin the entire experience as completely as meeting your
parents at an orgy. Set in the near-future, the film depicts a
post-apocalyptic world in which humanity has seemingly been almost
destroyed by a creature that hunts exclusively via sound. The
monsters are completely blind and don't seem to have an especially
good sense of smell which is lucky because if I was a character in
this film, I would definitely shit my pants if I saw one. However they
have such an acute sense of hearing that if you were to make even the
slightest noise then they'd appear almost instantly to violently
slice you up with their claws and then eat you. Essentially they're
the kind of creature that I dream about having as a pet to take to
the fucking cinema with me. Rather than starting at the beginning of
this situation, we're instead dropped into the middle of it as
Krasinski, his wife Emily Blunt, and their three children, are out
scavenging for supplies. They live in a farmhouse away from most
other people and have completely rigged the place up to be as sound
proof as possible. Although if the creatures do have super sensitive
hearing then I'd just rig up a huge speaker, play non-stop fucking
Green Day and watch the pricks flee.
Perhaps
it's too strong to call A Quiet Place a
horror movie because it's really more of a survivalist thriller with
horror elements. Imagine the final scene of Alien in
which Ripley is trapped in the escape-pod with the xenomorph or the
basement scene in War Of The Worlds in
which Tim Robbins goes mad and you're on the right lines. In
many ways A Quiet Place would
work as a great triple bill alongside 2015's The Survivalist and
2017's It Comes At Night in
that all three show an end of the world scenario in which the few
people left are just trying to get by. And speaking of things that come
at night, it's worth mentioning that the tension in this movie is
particularly fucking high because of Emily Blunt's character being
pregnant. Now, I've never personally given birth, but from what I'm
told, the act of having a tiny human explode from your genitals is at
least a little painful. Plus babies tend to cry a hell of a lot which
I've always assumed is due to the existential dread they feel having
gone to so much effort to be part of our miserable world. If you're
trying your best to be quiet in order to avoid being eaten by
monsters then I can't help but think that Blunt's character has gone
and made life a little trickier by getting knocked up. I don't want
to give too much away, but obviously there's a scene in which Blunt
has to give birth without screaming which is so tense that you'd
think she was surrounded by fucking Scientologists.
Not
that this is the only edge of the seat moment in the movie of course.
My arse was clenched so tightly throughout that I half expected my
pants to have been ripped off from the suction and devoured by my
anus. Most horror movies rely on loud noises as a cheap jump scare
but here they're lingered on so intently that they're more like jump
gut-punches. The world of the film is completely believable too, with
Krasinski and his family having thought of everything possible to
avoid making sound. The floor is painted with stepping spots to avoid
creaky floor boards, they all speak using sign-language, and none of
them wear socks or shoes which occasionally makes this seem like a
particularly fucked up scene from The Hobbit. Almost
every possible scenario that could come up in the set-up of this
movie seems to have been considered and thoughtfully explored. They
do play Monopoly though which seems pretty fucking stupid to me. Fair
enough that they've replaced all of the counters with bits of foam to
cut down on noise. But what they seem to have forgotten is that it's
fucking Monopoly! I've literally banned my friendship group from
playing that twatting game because every time we do everybody gets so
annoyed that the neighbours must surely be on the verge of calling
the police on us for domestic fucking disturbance.
Of
course all great horror movies must have some metaphorical relation
to our real world troubles or anxieties and A Quiet Place
is no exception. Krasinski
claims that for him the film was a simple story about the fear of
starting a family and the overwhelming desire to protect them from
the threats of the world. However people have looked even deeper at
it and concluded that in our world of anti-gun protests, it's about
having your voice violently cut down by those in charge. On a more
surface level- and ignoring the monsters- I'm sure we can all relate to
the fears that the main characters feel. Who of us hasn't snuck about
the house when our parents were asleep because we know that some
dopey family member had left a Kit-Kat Chunky in the fridge
downstairs. And what mother can't relate to the desire to have her
crying baby shut up as she feels the social pressure of everybody
else on the bus to just fling the screaming brat out of the fucking
window? Not that any of this would matter without a great monster, I
guess. Luckily this is another aspect in which the film also
completely delivers with the efficiency of hiring The Flash as a
fucking postman.
Generally
it's best for horror movies to hide their creature as much as they
can to avoid showing how silly it really looks. Just look at the
xenomorph at the very end of Alien or
even Hulk Hogan throughout the duration of Mr Nanny.
However the monster here is
regularly seen in all its glory and it's genuinely fucking creepy.
It's head genuinely bothered me every-time I saw it as it was like a
cross between the Demogorgon from Stranger Things and
a pinecone made of shredded up dick-skin. Perhaps proof of the film's
greatness though is that despite my initial worries about seeing this
film at a cinema full of noisy humans, the packed screen remained
silent and transfixed throughout. People gasped and let out small
screams when they were supposed to but nobody talked over the film or
even seemed to whisper to the person next to them. I mean there was
some woman to my right that's stomach rumbled and there was a man to
my left who breathed so loudly I thought he was making a dirty
phone-call at one point. But I guess I can't be mad about things
people can't control. The film was brilliant and I think the good
behaviour of the audience was a testament to its power. Having said
that I did notice that most of the people watching the film with me
did seem unusually old for this kind of film. So I do wonder if they
were all here by mistake having confused the title of the film with
that room in the old folks home in which they're allowed to sit and
think about things. In which case I congratulate them all for
remaining quiet throughout this confusing and no doubt fucking
terrifying couple of hours for them. Thanks for reading motherfuckers,
and see you next time.
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