“A Quiet Place: Day One”
The storm before the award-winning calm
As part of the touring of “A Quiet Place: Day One” at the end of April, lead actress Lupita Nyong’o paid a visit to Berlin.
© Paramount Pictures Germany/Tom Wagner
The suspense horror thriller “A Quiet Place” caused a stir in 2018. With “A Quiet Place: Day One” the audience learns how it all began.
Anyone who secured a ticket for “A Quiet Place” in April 2018, which was initially considered an insider tip, had an amazing cinema experience: especially the first 20 minutes of the film by and with John Krasinski (44) unleashed such a deafening silence on the hall that only daring film fans dared to munch on their popcorn. With a small budget and great ingenuity, the horror film blossomed into a surprise success, the sequel of which even defied the corona pandemic – and from June 27th, an equally promising prequel will be released in the form of “A Quiet Place: Day One”.
Silence is essential for survival – that’s what “A Quiet Place: Day One” is about
Sam (Lupita Nyong’o, 41), a New Yorker who returns to the city for a day, is surprised, like all the other residents of the metropolis, by a sudden attack of monstrous creatures that suddenly fall from the sky. The enormous monsters are the perfect predators due to their keen hearing, incredible speed and almost impenetrable armor.
Sam and her comrades, including the young man Eric (Joseph Quinn, 30), must quickly learn to adapt to a new, merciless world order. Because even if you make a sound miles away from the monsters, you are doomed to die.
The nerve-wracking decline of humanity
“A Quiet Place” began in medias res, throwing the audience into the middle of an apocalypse that had already claimed most of humanity. To be more precise, the main plot of the film began 470 days after the alien invasion and focused on the five-member Abbott family around father Lee (Krasinski) and mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt, 41), who had already cleverly adapted to a life in complete silence.
This decision was certainly partly born out of necessity – staging the end of the world in a credible way is expensive and cannot be managed with the reported budget of just 17 million US dollars. Fortunately, part one grossed around 340 million US dollars, and part two, despite being released in the middle of the corona pandemic, brought in a strong 300 million US dollars – so the budget is no longer the problem.
Speaking of part two: In a short but incredibly exciting flashback, it showed how the Abbotts experienced the first day of the alien attack and survived with only a lot of luck. The fact that an entire film is now turning the clock back to zero with “A Quiet Place: Day One” promises nothing less than a spectacle – the storm before the oppressive calm into which the cinema audience was pushed in 2018.
Less symbolism, more action
According to Krasinski himself, in part one he wanted to use the monsters to symbolize all the worries, problems and dangers that parents face in reality. And he succeeded in doing so masterfully. Sending your child to school alone for the first time, letting them go out in the evening as a teenager – for many parents it must really feel like they are releasing their everything into a world full of monstrous dangers.
Instead of this underlying symbolism, the new entry in the film series now relies on more visually powerful visuals. The fact that everything in “A Quiet Place: Day One” is significantly bigger than in the franchise’s first film six years ago is evident from the setting. “A Quiet Place” and its sequel took place in the countryside, while the prequel is now set in the middle of New York. “Day One” is therefore more like a modern “Cloverfield”, which (thankfully) avoids the shaky “found footage” aesthetic.
Everything new – with one exception
A breath of fresh air is also blowing in the director’s chair: For the first time, John Krasinski is not directing an “A Quiet Place” film himself, but is handing over to Michael Sarnoski, with whom he did at least write the script. Sarnoski does not have many projects to his name yet. However, with “Pig”, released in 2021, in which he sent Nicolas Cage (60) on an unusual rescue mission, he demonstrated great talent and a good sense of drama.
Instead of Krasinski and his real-life wife Emily Blunt, part two already featured a new combination: Blunt was joined by the now Oscar-winning Cillian “Oppenheimer” Murphy (48).
“A Quiet Place: Day One” features a no less interesting duo: Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o meets “Stranger Things” favorite Joseph Quinn. While he made his breakthrough thanks to a role in a horror series, the “12 Years a Slave” star ventured into the genre at the height of his career: In Jordan Peele’s (45) socially critical horror film “Us,” she even shone in a double role and delivered an impressive application letter for future roles as a “Scream Queen.”
There is one constant within the film series, however: character actor Djimon Hounsou (60), who had a small and somewhat thankless role in part two, also appears in “A Quiet Place: Day One” and thus gets the chance to give his character more depth. However, those who are new to “A Quiet Place” don’t have to worry that newcomers won’t understand anything about “Day One”. As with franchise veterans, from June 27th they should sit back and, despite the tension, try not to make a sound in the cinema.