Dr. DVD

Caught this on opening day with a half full theater and am glad as a full one with today's modern audiences would have ruined the suspense IMO. Good movie provided you don't nit pick, lot's refrigerator plot holes as Hitchcock would put it.

Don't know if this has been mentioned as a possible origin for the creatures , but I thought they looked somewhat like an advanced form of megorgons. Any chance they maybe came from the Upside Down?

whotony

What is that?

TomOpus

The Upside Down is from Stranger Things.

story

Was on my way last night to Theater A to see Ready Player One when my friend called to say they found a house and are busy with their realtor and had to cancel. No sweat, I want to see it with him. He called just as I was passing another theater, so I pulled over, checked Movie Pass, saw that A Quiet Place is playing, so I went for it.

My review?

If you had a tense day at work, do not go to this movie to "unwind!"

I definitely enjoyed it! A rush of tension throughout the film and every jump scare felt earned. Liked the story and enjoyed the characters. Well-directed and the production value was great, too. I'm sure this was a low- to mid-budget film and it didn't feel like it to me in terms of what was on the screen. One could argue the scope of the story shows how low the budget was and yet I'd still offer every dollar they spent is on the screen and I appreciated that as a movie goer.

A few quick responses to some questions raised here:
- Sure, scientists figured it out. If they're not all dead. Or busy dealing with it, elsewhere. This little town doesn't seem to be a major place to deal with the creatures. Snow plows don't start with alleys. Also, if they did figure it out, um, exactly how were they going to get the word out?!
- There were a few times characters didn't make the smartest decisions but I'd also offer up they're now in a world of trial and error, doing your best, and terrible failures (that said, you can think it through as much as possible and still not think it through enough, such as batteries and a toy by your kid...).
- As for the baby, sex is a major emotional connection point for most couples and they're living in a world where they really need some emotional connection. Even the safest sex can lead to pregnancy. Whether they meant to get pregnant or were excited to get pregnant is one thing, but they're clearly hopeful people who are going to try everything they can to welcome a new life and keep it safe.

One bit of mise-en-scene I really appreciated and I haven't seen mentioned here is the son's costume was excellent. He was in a mix of plaids and stripes and none of them matched, plus his pants were too short. He's a growing young man and clearly, they're using whatever clothes they can get for him, given the situation. I thought this was a nice touch to do some great world building.

beavis69

Surprised at the good reviews for this. Average at best. Super high frequency takes down aliens with ultra sensitive hearing, you don't say. Guy screams loud as hell and alien attacks, but doesn't catch the car rolling down a hill for a good minute after. Major takeaway, having a baby during alien apocalypse=stupid.

jpcamb

saw this last night on the $6 movie night at a local theater. Was really pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I found the daughter a bit irritating but otherwise really enjoyed the jump scares and such. I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good an actor Krasinski is, he was so deadpan in The Office, but since then really has broken out with this and the movie he played a mercenary or whatever in. Really looking forward to Jack Ryan. It was interesting seeing him paired with Emily as well...

Trevor

Loved it.

fujishig

I don't know if it's always been like this or if it's because of "the internet" but man it's hard for people to just sit back and enjoy a film without nitpicking the plot to death. And I include myself in that as well (not in this film, but, say, the last Star Wars film, JL, etc.)

I do think the atmosphere and overall direction of the film make up for any plot holes, and in this situation, I can't really say I'd be anywhere near as prepared as Krasinski was here.

d2cheer

Internet has nothing to do with it. I couldn't enjoy it while I watched it because of the issues I had.

writer106

I saw it on Wednesday night. I thought it was ok, but not extremely great. I liked it more than something like Signs.

Mike86

While this definitely does come into play with some films I wouldn’t say that was the case for me with this film. I was just bothered by certain aspects that were just dumb choices by the characters. The baby thing is still by far my biggest complaint just for how stupid it is to their survival to have a baby that’s inevitably going to make noise.

Daytripper

Finally caught this tonight. What a white knuckle ride. Krasinski knocked it out of the park IMO. One of the best sci-fi thrillers I've ever seen. Yeah, having a baby was not smart. But we don't know if they tried to get rid of it. So the rest of the family could survive. Loved every minute of it and gets my highest rating.

inri222

I liked the concept, but thought it could have been executed a bit better. I still enjoyed it.

3.5/5

andicus

I enjoyed this, but did have a few problems with it. That was one of them.

The nail in the staircase was another irritation. How was it even there? I realize it got caught on the laundry bag, but that was a big nail that would've taken a lot of force to bend up.

The vulnerability of the creatures to sound also reminded me of an episode of The Twilight Zone called "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" in which Frisby was a teller of tall tales and was almost abducted by aliens. He got away from them by playing his harmonica, which was an incapacitating sound, to them.

I found their bulletin board pretty funny in its large, simplistic statements:

RichC2

All I ever think of with that ending:

Unclejosh

Also wouldn't you carry around either fireworks or maybe some sort of noise maker that you could throw or sling shot away from you in order to distract them and then sneak away quietly? Like a bunch of those kitchen timers or maybe portable radios? or other manual alarm clocks? If they were able to rig up that elaborate lighting system couldn't they rig a speaker up high say on top of that tower that could trigger remotely which would bring the creatures to that point and they could get into their basement hole?

Yes this is nitpicking and I liked the movie a lot but this occurred to me as I was watching.

inri222

Same here.

Chrisedge

I wanted to like this. Great acting. Great premise. WAY too many plot holes.

Live by the waterfall
Create a soundproof room (The mattress did the trick a bit, imagine if they actually did something substantial)
Toss/create "diversion" items to make sounds.
Create fake soundscape (blast music/waterfall sounds 24/7) to fool monsters and live by that.
You don't hammer down the nail?
Baby in a box?
No one ever figured out the high pitched sounds causes the monsters to freak out?
Why show us the neighbors (near by fires) without any further explanation (I like and get that it doesn't need to explain everything, but that seemed silly)

I could nitpick more, but that is just off the top of my head.

Koby

Yeah the movie was alright, but it can be picked apart like crazy with all these silly little plotholes that just don't make any sense logic-wise.

GoldenJCJ

I watched this last night. Despite the plotholes I loved the movie. One of the best movies I’ve seen this year!

Lara Means

What plotholes?

Michael Corvin

I watched last night. It was excellent. It wasn't scary in the least, but I really dug what it was doing and was all in on the family's story. I liked that the movie dropped us into an event that already happened and the audience only knows what the family knows. It helps give it more of a sense of isolation. It kinda felt like a cross between Signs and 10 Cloverfield Lane. The alien design was pretty cool. The "living" face/skin was cool. The nail scene and subsequent bathtub scene was tense as hell. The most intense scene for me though was when the kids were in the silo. The kids were excellent throughout. I like Krasinski, he should be in more stuff. Kinda dug the beard too.

I liked the little touches too, like leaving the doors open. Closing one will make a small noise that can be avoided, but forget once when you're opening a door and the wind could catch it and slam it open.

About the only gripe that kinda bugged me was soundproofing the basement. Why not hit up the store and get a bunch of pillowtop mattress pads and glue them to the walls? Or hell, why not collect as many pillows as possible and make the basement one giant pillow fort? I guess they have a chance of falling over, but you could use rope tied to the crossbeams to hold them in place.

I love that the movie gets you thinking about sound. I wish I had seen it in the theater.

TomOpus

You're assuming there's a store in the area. And there's lots leftover after everyone else has looted the store.

GoldenJCJ

Mostly what everyone has been bitching about in this thread: the sloppy parental supervision in the opening sequence, electricity, inconsistency in the creature’s hearing abilities, the idea that the military wouldn’t have been able to realize the creatures could be affected by high pitch frequencies, etc.

I can look past those things if the film itself is well made. I also felt Signs was one of the best movies of 2002 despite the argument over their weakness.

GoldenJCJ

I can’t remember where I read it but I remember hearing that the writers were approached by Cloverfield producers at one point to try to tie this movie into the Cloverfield universe. The writers declined. Not sure if it’s true or not but considering the Cloverfield universe seems to be little more than retrofitting other sci-fi movies into theirs seems to be a thing, I’d say it’s probable.

Me too. I kept wondering what happens when they sneeze or someone if sick with a cold.