The Sequel To A QUIET PLACE Is All Over The Place

 A QUIET PLACE PART II

(Dir. John Krasinski, 2021)

This was the first film I’ve seen on the big screen since March 2020, which is when it was originally scheduled to be released. Of course, you know why it was delayed, and why I went so long avoiding movie theaters. Now that things are getting somewhat back to normal, I caught up with John Krazinski’s sequel to his 2018 sleeper hit, A QUIET PLACE. I had enjoyed the first film, which depicts a family headed by the real life married couple Krasinski and Emily Blunt as Lee and Evelyn Abott trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world where tall, lanky blind aliens with multiple rows of sharp teeth will kill them if they make even the slightest sounds.

Although Krasinski’s character, Lee Abbott, was killed in the original, he appears here in a flashback opening which goes back to the first day of the alien attack. The scary creatures violently interrupt a little league game in an unspecified small town (somewhere in upstate New York), and it’s a thrilling sequence that I wish the movie stayed with longer. 

Instead we flash forward to Day 474, 385 days since the events of Part I, and we find Blunt’s Evelyn and her kids, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), who’s deaf, and Marcus (Noah Jupe), who’s main trait is that he’s very nervous, living on the same farm, but not for long as the Halpert, sorry, Abbott family sets on a supply run across dangerous, devastated terrain. Oh, yeah, there’s the baby that Evelyn had in the previous installment, but he mostly naps in a soundproof wooden crate, or sucks on an oxygen canister.

Presumably because writer/director Krasinski thought they needed a moody male presence since the Dad is gone, Cillian Murphy pops up as Emmett an old friend of the family. Murphy’s character is a little reminiscent of his role in DUNKIRK, as he’s also a traumatized solider.

Much of the movie is set at a compound, a former Steel Mill, where Emmett lives in an air-tight bunker. Some of these scenes drag, but there are enough jolts, and shocks to keep one engaged. The last third concerns Emmett and Regan finding themselves at an island colony of survivors who act as if things are getting back to normal. The colony’s leader, Djimon Hounsou credited as “Man on the Island,” brings the promise of a weighty note to the narrative, but he doesn’t last long enough for his part to have much impact.

The finale, of course, is the family/monster showdown, and there’s a clever element to how the humans attempt to take down their slimey tormenters (I won’t Spoil it). However, I liked PART II a lot less than PART I. It didn’t feel as grounded or as emotionally gripping, and a lot of its tries to mirror the beats and scares of the original I could really see coming. It’s fitting that the film skips from one location to another, as it often feels like it’s all over the place. Where is a quiet place anyway? Is it the farm from PART I and part of PART II? Is it at the top of one of those silos? Or is it somewhere inside of us all?

A QUIET PLACE PART II is a fair follow-up that will likely be most appreciated by fans of the first one. It does have the highlight of the performance by Simmonds, who could very be seen as the film’s lead protagonist. Blunt puts in a solid, intense turn too, as does Murphy, but Simmonds steals this sequel fair and square.

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John Krasinski’s A QUIET PLACE Is Scary Good

Now playing at a multiplex near me:

A QUIET PLACE (Dir. John Krasinski, 2018) 

Since the hit NBC comedy, The Office, ended its run in 2013, John Krasinski has been trying to shed the skin of everyman Jim Halpert, who he played for nine seasons; 188 episodes.

To meet that end, Krasinzki played parts in Cameron Crowe’s infamous bomb, ALOHA; Michael Bay’s lowest grossing movie to date, 13 HOURS; did some low-key voice work in fairly forgotten animated films (THE PROPHET, ANIMAL CRACKERS), and he directed and starred in the 2016 comedy drama THE HOLLARS.

Much like his directorial debut, 2009’s BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN, THE HOLLARS got mixed reviews, and didn’t make much of a splash, but now with his third film, A QUIET PLACE, Krasinski has made a major leap out of the shadow of Jim.

Krasinski, who co-wrote the screenplay with Bryan Woods, and Scott Beck, stars as husband and father, Lee Abbott, though we never hear that name out loud as he and his family, including his wife Evelyn (played by real-life wife Emily Blunt, and their deaf daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and their sons, Marcus (Noah Jupe), and Beau (Cade Woodward), have to be completely quiet or else they’ll be attacked and eaten by demons.

You see, it’s yet another post apocalyptic landscape with, you know the drill: shots of an abandoned town with walls covered with missing persons flyers, the ransacked shelves of department stores, and newspaper headlines like “NYC on Lockdown” interspersed into the set-up. Another headline, “Stay Silent, Stay Alive,” lays out the Abbott family’s lifestyle as we see them communicate in sign language as they quietly make their way and back on a trip into town to get supplies during the film’s prologue.

The Abbotts live on a large farm, with corn fields, and multiple silos, and have taken precautions like stringing lights throughout the property which can be switched from yellow to red to warn the others of danger, and having fireworks on hand so that they can distract the monsters with loud noises when needed. And with Blunt’s very pregnant Evelyn about to give birth, lemme tell ya, they are needed!

We never learn where these blood thirsty creatures came from, or any other info about how large parts of the population were annihilated by them, we just get the Abbott’s tale of survival with the dad’s attempts to make contact with any other survivors via his shortwave radio bringing little hope, likewise his efforts to fix his daughter’s hearing aids (“it never works!” signs Regan).

With a cast of only six people (there’s an old man played by Leon Russom that they run into in the woods), precious little dialogue *, and a fair yet sparring amount of CGI for the demons, Krasinski has made a stirring, nerve-racking, and tensely effective thriller that never lags. It’s a confident piece of construction in its pacing, and with its edgy emotional pull it feel like you’re right there with these characters right up until its satisfying ending.

Krasinski gets a lot out of this simple but powerful premise by bringing a lot of heart to it. You can feel the warmth between he and Blunt, like when they share a moment listening to Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” through shared earbuds, and in how they work together to get their newborn baby to safely. Blunt, by the way, has the movie’s most terrifying scene, involving having to give birth in complete silence in a bathtub by herself as creatures crawl through the house around her.

The kids’ performances deliver too – Simmonds is strong as the determined oldest sibling who feels unloved by her father, while Jupe is “on” as the very scared younger brother.

Marco Beltrami’s subtle score never intrudes on one of the film's other big stars - its sound design which successfully made me feel every aural instance. This is a movie that anyone who talks during should be immediately escorted out - its spare use of sound will reward its audiences’ complete silence.

A QUIET PLACE is quite an exciting surprise from Krasinski. It goes to show like Jordan Peele before him with GET OUT, these actor/director/writers can carve a new niche for themselves in with low budget yet high concept horror productions that can come in on an off season and make a killing. Of course, it also helps greatly that Krasinski, like Peele before him, has made a movie that’s scary good.

*By going to a nearby river and waterfall, the father and son get to briefly talk safely, and there’s a soundproof room they’ve constructed for the new baby. Of course, these elements have made some critics ask “why don’t they just live by the river, or in the soundproof room then?”

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