Hush Now

Calling all astrobiologists: how in the name of Orion’s Belt does an extraterrestrial like the one in A Quiet Place and its sequels make any sense at all? A Quiet Place: Day One, the third film in the series but technically a prequel that kicks off the hell-from-the-heavens mayhem, extends a franchise that traffics in cheap jump-scare thrills, impressive vfx destruction from sci-fi beasties, and cornpone moments of personal sacrifice. It also continues to elide any insights into the murderous monsters that might spin this superficial roller-coaster trifle into an absorbing nailbiter. The Xenomorph from Alien has nothing to worry about.

A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE ★★ (2/5 stars)
Directed by: Michael Sarnoski
Written by: Michael Sarnoski
Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou
Running time: 99 mins

Blind lifeforms with razor-sharp hearing and dagger-sharp teeth attack everything everywhere all at once with alarming alacrity whenever they hear even the slightest rustling. How does this aural sensitivity help propagate that species? Not explained. Why don’t these blind, echolocating creatures rabidly attack each other once any of them makes any sort of noise? The filmmakers’ lips are sealed. 

For those not familiar with the minutiae of the hit first film, 2018’s A Quiet Place, these monsters are nicknamed Death Angels, so coined in a newspaper clipping prominently displayed on a wall. Also hard to miss on an adjacent whiteboard is the cryptic observation, “Why don’t they eat their prey?” Maybe they’re keeping kosher. Or it’s not halal. Diverticulitis? 

So we have an interplanetary life form that scampers madly across long distances in short bursts just to silence literally anything that makes even the slightest sound. Hunger doesn’t motivate them, they just violently dislike any noise distressing their plate-shifting cranium, a noggin studded with multiple armored ear canals. Not too sure how intergalactic evolution works, but noise-sensitivity seems like a detriment to the survival of any species aside from a planet of librarians and monks. Anyway, silence is golden. So shut your pie hole!

The first and second films focused on the Abbott family: Lee (John Krasinski, who also wrote and directed both), Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and Marcus (Noah Jupe). Not so in A Quiet Place: Day One, which jettisons those folks in order to tack hard temporally and geographically, going back in time to the moment the aliens ride their asteroids right into the earth and pop out to shush our world into compliance.

What’s that, you say? The first sequel literally opens with a “Day One” prelude that shows exactly that moment in small-town Millbrook, New York? Yes. Yes, it does. So some brainiac decided to spin off and reset the clock yet again, but in New York City. Because urban destruction is more fun to watch on the big screen. Which means there could be a slew of other sequels that just Groundhog-Day this franchise into the ground. A Quiet Place: Day One—Rio De Janeiro, anyone?

My bad, I haven’t even mentioned the characters in A Quiet Place: Day One. Does it matter? Sure, why not. There’s Sam, (Lupita Nyong’o) a cancer-ridden singleton riding out her last days in an outerborough hospice. She takes a field trip into Manhattan on that fateful day, and—thanks to a slow-release fentanyl transdermal patch and her emotional support cat—finds the fortitude enough to quietly walk the length of the island, all the way from Chinatown to Harlem. For a slice of pizza. Huh? By the way, it’s from legendary NYC pizzeria Patsy’s. That kind of makes sense, they make a delicious slice. Especially if you’re going to die from either cancer or a cochlear-crazed killing machine.

A mousy brit named Eric (Joseph Quinn), who goes from meek tagalong to chivalrous companion, accompanies her. Along the way, many people make noises, some loud and some soft, which sometimes tripwire alien attacks and sometimes don’t. The guiding principle, as with the previous films, seems to be that the movie invokes the sound rule only when convenient for the filmmaker.

There’s also a water rule: the aliens can’t swim for some reason. That rule popped up in the second movie, with the introduction of an island on which lived Djimon Hounsou and his family. Hounsou appears in this movie, too, with family in town, introducing them and showing their evacuation on a boat that presumably ends up taking them to that aforementioned island.

The movie never explains why the aliens didn’t jump on everyone as scores of people got onto escape boats—I presume that the onboarding must have required a certain amount of noise. Why the leggy aliens—who exhibit impressive speed and seem to leap great distances—can’t jump onto the boats as they chug up the East River is beyond me. But these mindless sci-fi horror exercises in sensory scares and spooky vibes don’t want you to think. Just sit there and keep quiet.