Title – A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)

Director – Michael Sarnoski (Pig)

Cast – Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou

Plot – New York resident and cancer patient Samira (Nyong’o) is caught up in a life defining situation when a huge collection of aliens with supersonic hearing land on earth and cause mass panic and destruction.  

“Hear how it all began”

Review by Eddie on 28/06/2024

2018’s A Quiet Place was one of the recent eras most surprising success stories. 

Directed by The Office alumni John Krasinski and written by a writing duo who had previously only dabbled in low budget horror outings, the high concept thriller defined the odds to become a tension riddled exercise in white knuckle movie-making that helped ensure its financial success that spawned a direct sequel, an upcoming video game iteration and this prequel film Day One. 

Helmed by Michael Sarnoski, the man responsible for the incredibly good Nicolas Cage drama Pig (please go and watch if you haven’t previously done so), Day One ups the ante from the first two Krasinski overseen films by moving the action to the Big Apple as we follow Lupita Nyong’o softly spoken cancer patient Samira and her cat Frodo in amongst ground zero of the alien invasion that we know from the first two films decimated our planet. 

There was so much joy to be found by this “silent” concept in the first A Quiet Place outing, a gimmick the film used to great effect to create atmosphere and suspense but as we saw with the second film that concept has started to wear thin and while in reality Day One is a well-made film, it struggles to do anything that will be remembered after the credits have rolled and at the same time struggles to justify why we should care too much for what’s happening despite the best attempts of the always good Nyong’o and the solid support she gets from Stranger Things breakout star and future Fantastic Four key player Joseph Quinn as the kindly Eric. 

The whole idea of an alien invasion lead by a species that acts entirely on their ability to hear sounds at a level that makes them a deadly threat to anyone and anything that makes even the slightest of noises (hay fever/allergy sufferers would not last long in this new world order) felt fresh and exciting in 2018 and made for some great shared cinema moments where audiences felt bad even shovelling some popcorn into their mouths but with Day One a lot of that movie magic has disappeared and what we are left with is a mostly generic genre offering that lacks any grand set pieces or smarts to make it stand out from the pack. 

At a relatively brisk 100 minute runtime Day One can’t be accused of overstaying its welcome and Sarnoski and his writing partners John Krasinski and Bryan Woods can at least be commended for trying their best to add some heart and soul to the carnage of a city under siege but again there’s never ever any real sense of purpose to anything here and the film does suffer from a lack of engaging character elements that were present in the opening saga entries thanks to the Abbott family and our will too see them overcome the odds in an unforgiving world. 

The other thing that certainly wasn’t on my movie watching bingo card was the fact Day One virtually gives second billing to a feline. 

Having deliberately avoided watching promotional materials for this film in hopes I could watch with fresh eyes, seeing Frodo the cat on a myriad of adventures in amongst all the chaos may at first be mildly enjoyable but as you realise just how much screen time and suspension of disbelief one needs to tolerate our furry friends antics, you wonder how this one got through to the final product with Frodo’s oversaturated narrative time distracting your viewing rather than enhancing it, making things more comical than required for a film that is otherwise entirely po-faced. 

Final Say – 

A well-shot and performed film that struggles to ever become a gripping and memorable outing in its own right, A Quiet Place: Day One marks an intriguing moment in the Quiet Place extended universe, one that suggests the well may be dry on this concept that initially felt ripe for further exploration and adventures. 

2 1/2 traumatic pizza trips out of 5