A Quiet Place is a near-perfect film. John Krasinski's directorial debut is one of the most suspenseful movies I’ve ever seen. The film’s central gimmick—nobody can make a sound or the mysterious and deadly monsters will show up and kill you—results in one of the most tense and unnerving experiences in modern cinema. The family dynamic adds an emotional layer that makes the film both scarier and more poignant. Its brisk 90-minute runtime means you’re never bored.
How do you follow that up with a sequel, let alone a prequel?
On one level, it’s just not possible. There is no way to top what the first film achieved. The novelty can only stretch so far. The first film does so many things right. The family’s loss and grief. The fear and hope of a baby on the way—an infant with no control over its wailing, like a bundle of joy doubling as a ticking time-bomb. When I wrote my original review, I said the entire movie felt like that great velociraptor scene with the kids in Jurassic Park.
The second Quiet Place film surprised me. No, it wasn’t as good as the first film but it was still a quality continuation of the story of the Abbott family, and it expanded the post-apocalyptic world this franchise is slowly crafting that much more, with new communities, characters and monster intel. In the first movie, we learned that they were weak to certain sound frequencies; in the sequel, water is another chink in their armor (which made me think of Signs).
In the prequel, A Quiet Place: Day One, we finally see the creatures’ nests. That’s about the only thing we really learn about the aliens, but it’s enough. I like that these movies do very little to expand the world and our understanding of the monsters. Sometimes knowing too much about something can make it less interesting. See, for instance, The Force in Star Wars. It was infinitely more cool before George Lucas introduced midichlorians, and the Jedi were a lot more exciting before we learned all about the bureaucratic Jedi Order.
Instead, Day One focuses on a smaller, more intimate story. It does exactly the same thing the first two films did so well: Introduce characters (and one brave kitty) who we learn to care about, making us fear for their survival. Given how the first film ends, we know that none of these people are safe. There is no plot armor defending them. Anybody of any age can be killed in a flash.
In Day One we’re introduced to Sammy (Lupita Nyong’o). She’s dying from cancer. She’s bitter about it and angry that her life has come to this, that she’s stuck in hospice wasting away. “I’m mean,” she tells her nurse, Reuben (Alex Wolff). She’s not a people person, but she is a pizza person. It’s the only reason she agrees to join some of the other patients on a bus trip into the city. New York City pizza is her Holy Grail. We learn more about why later.
It’s a bad day to go into the city, and after a strangely moving marionette show where she first bumps into Henry (Djimon Hounsou) who we first met in Part II, the aliens attack. Mayhem follows, and a desperate journey through a city brought to ruin in mere hours.
Later, she meets Eric (Joseph Quinn) and the two embark on an odd couple odyssey into the city—looking for pizza—and into Sammy’s heartbreaking past. It’s an oddly beautiful movie, with lots of calm between the storm. Nyong’o is brilliant start to finish, and I’m reminded just how terrific she was in Us, and how little I’ve seen her in recently.
Quinn, who you may recognize from the last season of Stranger Things—though he had an American accent and an 80s’ hard-rock hairdo—is tremendous as well, drawing a surprising well of emotion and depth out of a character with so few lines. It’s when these two—and Sam’s cat, Frodo—team up that the film really comes alive.
Day One manages to pair this great story of friendship at the end of the world with a really tense, very straightforward story with just enough jump scares to keep you on the edge of your seat. Like the first two movies, this one never overstays its welcome, clocking in at 1 hour and 40 minutes. I often lament how many movies these days run 20 or 30 minutes too long (or longer) and I can easily see how they could have stuffed in another half hour of repetitive action here to pad out the film, but instead things wrap up exactly when they should.
I also like that both Eric and Sam are given their own strengths and weaknesses. Both help one another on their journey. They’re each brave in their own ways, and lean on one another when they need to.
Director Michael Sarnoski takes the reins from Krasinski this time around, though both men collaborated on the story. Sarnoski directed the 2021 film Pig starring Nic Cage, and brings some of that art-house sensibility to Day One. It’s beautifully filmed, and that juxtaposition of beauty and terror works well in this far more urban setting. It’s not quite as scary as the previous two films, but that’s in part a symptom of following up such excellent opening acts. Once it gets moving, however, it’s genuinely great.
Like the last two, A Quiet Place: Day One is absolutely worth watching in a theater where all the sights and sounds and scares are as amplified as possible. Either way, don’t miss it.