A Quiet Place
★★½Skip itIs A Quiet Place worth watching? (No spoilers)
An amazing premise, a unique world, a great core cast and terrifying monsters. For two acts it's everything I wanted. Then the ending throws out its own rules and falls apart. Worth a watch for the first hour.
⚠️ Spoiler warning: everything below the quick take, including the full review and ending explained, contains spoilers.
A Quiet Place review
A Quiet Place was everything I wanted in a movie like this for the entirety of the first two acts. It had a unique world rule, not just in terms of horror, but films in general. It had an amazing core cast, a terrifying alien presence that was not fully understood, and some clear rules about how the world worked.
The genius in the set design, plot mechanics, and early child death were all perfectly done, and really got me involved.
My only issue with acts one and two is it was extremely unclear to me what the device was that the daughter wore. I was of the understanding it was to limit the audio input she had. The exact opposite was true, after reading online and learning it was supposed to be a failed cochlear implant.
The ending completely fell apart, and greatly lowered my feelings on the film, and killed any interest in seeing the sequel.
The idea of the father dying was great. It certainly could have been done better, he had almost a Braveheart esque death that was way to dramatic and drawn out.
But to me, the bigger issue was the disregard for the world rules. Suddenly the creatures could find you even if you were completely quiet, shown by their interest in the car, attack on the father, and reappearance in the basement.
Worse than that, the earpiece, which had already been overused before the climax, was finally figured out by the daughter. The idea that sound beats the super hearing monsters is already somewhat dumb. But after an hour of them explaining how no one on earth could figure out their weakness, it just felt ridiculous. How is that not the first thing attempted after big guns (which also work by the way).
Overall, it was an amazing premise that was skillfully executed, until the end, which felt like complete nonsense.
Is A Quiet Place scary?
Scare level: 3/5
Yes, especially if you hate silence. Nearly every scene is built on tension: one sound and the creatures attack. Expect a lot of jump scares and a couple of really stressful sequences (the bathtub birth scene in particular). Little gore.
A Quiet Place ending explained
The creatures attack the farm. Lee, the father, sacrifices himself, screaming to draw a creature away from his kids. Evelyn and the kids end up in the basement, where Regan realizes the high-pitched feedback from her cochlear implant hurts the creatures. She amplifies it through a microphone, the creature's armored head opens up, and Evelyn shoots it dead.
On the security monitors they see more creatures coming. Evelyn pumps the shotgun, Regan turns up the feedback, and the film ends.
The ending is about the family finally fighting back instead of hiding, using the thing Regan always felt was a weakness (her deafness and the implant) as the weapon. It also sets up the sequel.
My take: the creatures suddenly hunt people who are being quiet, and nobody on Earth figured out the sound weakness? It undercuts everything the film set up.
Does A Quiet Place have a post-credits scene?
No. A Quiet Place has no mid-credits or post-credits scene.
Movies like A Quiet Place
- Signs (2002) – a family on a farm hiding from aliens
- Don't Breathe (2016) – a horror built entirely around making no sound
- Bird Box (2018) – a family surviving monsters by cutting out one sense
- Us (2019) ★★★ – a family under attack in a single tense night