A Quiet Place: Day One – Been There Done That (Early Review)

What was initially teased in the opening flashback to A Quiet Place Part II has now been blown up to feature length scale in A Quiet Place: Day One, a prequel to the series that shows a different side of this now budding franchise. The film shifts the action away from the Abbott family of Parts 1 and 2 and introduces a new cast of characters caught in the middle of New York City back when the alien invaders first landed. The film stars Lupita Nyong’o as Sammy, a recovering addict and former poet overcome with grief, Joseph Quinn as Eric, a foreign exchange student with no one to turn to, and Nico & Schnitze as Frodo the Cat, Sammy’s lovable, scene-stealing feline! Replacing franchise creator John Krasinski in the director’s chair is Michael Sarnoski in his sophomore film, hired after impressing Krasinski and co. with Pig (one of the best films of 2021). Also writing the screenplay, he imbues it with a greater emphasis on the inner human drama amidst the horror.

A Quiet Place has a terrific premise at its core, aliens that can only “see” through sound and thus depriving humanity of one of their key senses to survive. Audiences are first introduced to the universe several years in and the world had since become accustomed to the alien threat. Most have moved on to live in the rural countryside, favoring an isolated but safe with a number of traps, tools, and tricks for day-to-day life so the promise of a prequel that flips all of that on its head makes for an enticing pitch. New York, a city that sustains 90 decibels at all times according to the film’s opening title card, is big, loud, crowded, and with the invasion having just happened, none of the characters have the chance to prepare for the threat at their doorsteps.

Getting off to an explosive start, the film quickly establishes Sammy and her pre-invasion world before audiences are off to the races. The titular Day One is frantic and dizzying as debris clouds the sky and screams quickly disappear amidst the murky silhouettes amidst the ash and at night, helicopters fly overhead advising civilians to head to the shores for evacuation by boat. As the story enters Day Two, the film starts to lose focus and simply falls into a repetitive rhythm of horror setpieces. From there, our survivors pick up on the situation almost immediately, which leads it to lose its inherent hook of seeing humanity learn and adapt to the aliens for the first time. This result is perhaps due to Day One being the third entry of a franchise whose world audiences are more than familiar with at this point. Therefore, one can’t help but wonder why to even make it a prequel if the filmmakers don’t make use of the opportunities it creates.

Meanwhile, the greater density of humans and aliens in the city seemed like another missed opportunity as aside from a few moments, the film retreats to similarly styled thrills as seen in its previous smaller scale entries. Its suspense sequences, however, are well shot and executed proficiently enough but with little differentiation in scares three movies in, the novelty of the overall premise has grown stale. Sammy is an unusual but intriguing protagonist whose arc is unique for a film like this, her goals are more of an internal battle than an external one while trying to survive this new situation. That being said, it also has an unfortunate side effect of making the film fairly aimless as far as its narrative goes, lacking both the frenzied energy of Day One and the driving force of a goal to work towards. Sarnoski’s attempt to zero in on a deeper internal character struggle amidst the chaos is commendable but the film can’t quite overcome the pacing slump it falls into, and the bog standard thrills only seek to heighten these flaws, not distract from them.

In the end, despite this switch up of creatives and setting, one can’t help but sense this franchise is slowly running out of steam. Though it may look different, A Quiet Place: Day One offers little that audiences haven’t already experienced in past entries. It’s a well made film with a strong cast and while Sarnoski remains an exciting new filmmaker who gives this entry a new feel, it’s not enough to overcome the general feeling of “been here done that”.

still courtesy of Paramount Pictures

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Alex Josevski

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