I made my long journey back to America this week, which means I watched a good amount of in-flight entertainment. To start off my 8 hour flight I decided, upon my sister's suggestion, to FINALLY watch A Quiet Place and boy am I glad I did.
For starters, because I watched it on a flight, the audio wasn't the best to begin with. After 'tuning' my headphone jack just right, I was able to get 75% audio and only 25% static. Which for the film I was watching ended up working to my benefit.
A Quiet Place takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, taken over by monsters with supernatural hearing abilities. This means that our protagonists, a family of 5, must live life in silence if they want to survive. Although how the world came to be like this is never explained, that curiosity quickly goes away as the viewer quickly becomes fascinated by all the little adjustments they make to survive.
Lead by the patriarch of the family, played by John Krasinski who also directed the film, the family 'monster' proofs or in this case, 'sound' proofs their home. They have set paths covered in sand to reduced noise when walking, they eat on leaves instead of plates, and in case of a sound emergency, they have fireworks on standby in a nearby field.
The most terrifying/breath catching sequence of the film by far is when the matriarch, played by Emily Blunt, goes into labor with a monster looming and stalking her throughout the house. With the rest of her family out gathering food, she is left alone and must remain noiseless in order for her and her coming child to survive.
This sequence strongly demonstrates the strengths of this film, as throughout it, the audience feels the pressure to be quiet as well. Unlike other horror flicks which rely on jump scares, and decades old tropes. This film relies on the audiences involvement, even though it of course has no impact on the film. This is the perfect film to watch home alone at night if that is your thing as the intimate sounds the film do have get heightened from a more personally experience, which was not the case for me as every 15 minutes or so there was an announcement from a stewardess.
Because I had the experience of watching it on a plane, every sudden noise of stream of AC had me shiver in my seat. This to me proved that this film and its lack of noise narrative worked. After all, who isn't afraid of things that go bump in the night or in this case plane?
