A Quiet Place ***spoiler alert***

Disclaimer: The way I react towards entertainment is not how I would act in real life situations. I don’t condone cheating and I would not kill my children to prevent future strife.

I know I say this a lot, but I really liked this movie. Horror/Thriller/whatever isn’t really my genre, but I was excited for this one.  Mainly because of John Krasinski.

Aside: John Krasinski is supposedly representing the average men of the world. That is a falsehood if I ever read one. Unless the standard for average has changed drastically and the ug-mugs of the world have died this man is a cut above. Holy-moly.

My friend and I spent a good amount of time saying kill those kids and in the crude words of my friend, “you should have swallowed.” I, personally, think that the right hand is the better option, but whatevs.

What happened:

This movie was so interesting because we never learn anyone’s name, age, hopes, and/or dreams. It’s mostly silently with a lot of gesticulating and suppressing emotions and a little sign language. It seems the reason this family survived is because one of the children is deaf so the whole family already knows sign language. The monsters they are hiding from are blind with auditory sensitivity.

It starts out in the grocery store because one of the 3 children is sick. The mother (Emily Blunt) finds the medicine quiet as mice, but the youngest child is hard to contain. He manages to get into childlike mischief trying to get a toy from a top shelf. He stands precariously on something not a ladder and accidentally knocks the toy off instead of getting a grip on. The deaf child is swift and basically slides into home base catching the toy before it hits the ground and gets them all killed. The dad (John) sees the toy, realizes it’s one that makes noise, and gives the unfortunate news that the toy can’t come. The dad takes out the batteries to ensure that it doesn’t accidentally turn on. He sits the toy and the batteries on a nearby counter.

Right here is when I knew that the little boy was going to get them into a sticky situation. Mainly because I saw the trailer, but also because I know kids. Kids aren’t like adults. They process differently. They may know right from wrong but things translate in their heads differently from adults.

The parents leave out first leaving the middle and youngest to bring up the rear.

This seems dangerous to me. What parents let their younger-than-teenage children walk behind them? I guess if they didn’t there would’ve been less conflict for the movie.

The daughter (the deaf child) gives the little brother the toy sans batteries. Of course, the youngest child grabs the batteries and on the silent walk home decides to test out his toy. His noisy toy. The dad tries to save him, but the whole family watches the youngest child be killed in an instant. They can’t scream, they can’t mourn aloud, nothing. They just have to watch him go with wide eyes and their hands pressed to their mouths.

Great way to start a movie. With the loss of a child. Yikes.

They go home and we see that they’ve been surviving this way for a while. They have a whole system in place. The dad is an engineering genius at this point. He has security monitors and back up plans in place if anything goes wrong during any point. He is working on a hearing aid for the daughter, but has been unsuccessful thus far.

We don’t know if she had a working one at one point or not.

They suffer through the trials of minor things going wrong when you have kids and just being human.

Of course, the mom goes into labor early, steps on a fucking rusty nail, and drops whatever she was carrying with the only loud noise around. Thankfully, she doesn’t immediately get struck down with rabies from the rusty nail and is quick on her feet. She uses a timer to put the monster off her scent, raises the alarm (switching the lights that are strung all around the property from yellow to red), then goes to silently birth her baby in the bath tub.

The oldest son and dad were on their way back from grabbing the days catch down at the creek (or wherever) and come across a man. Just out of nowhere. They see another person lying on the ground dead most likely at the hands/mouth of the monster. Dad can see it in his eyes that the man is about to make a noise HE silently beseeches him not to do it. The man does it any fucking way.

Geez Louise. Can we catch a friggin break???

You gotta learn to get over shit fast in this one because before you know it another tragedy will be upon you.

As they continue on their way they see the red lights. The dad asks the son to do some Plan B action, but the son is too frightened for a moment.

At this point, I kind of start to agree that these kids are more of a hindrance than anything and that perhaps they would’ve been better off snuffing them right from the start like my friend suggested.

However, the dad finally guilts him into doing what he can to help by saying that the mom needs his help. The dad grabs the shotgun and gets prepared for a showdown.

In the midst of all this the daughter is having some type of teenage meltdown which seems fucking ridiculous in the current climate, but what do I know? She is mad at their dad for not teaching her how to get the food. So, she goes off at the memorial of her younger brother while everything at home falls into disarray.

Back at home, the dad gets there after the danger has gone (mostly), but finds a blood smear in the tub after following the bloody foot trail left behind. He thought the wife and new baby were dead, but thankfully, they are in the show stall with the door closed. The wife slams a bloody hand on the door to alert him.

This was overkill. He was already thinking she was dead. Did she really have to scare the living day light out of the poor man by slamming her hand on the shower door?

Now is the tricky part. They need to get the baby (the newborn, cry-over-everything baby) to whatever safe haven they’ve created. With danger nipping at their heels they manage to get to the make-shift soundproof room and put the baby in what is essentially a coffin. Technically, it’s a wooden bed with a lid, but beds with lids and coffins look awfully similar. They have a baby oxygen mask and off the baby goes for a bit.

Now it’s time to find the other kids. The oldest got spooked (with good reason) and the daughter finally figures out something is wrong and races toward home. The oldest goes off the path and ends up knocking himself out on the heavy tire of farm machinery. The sister gets a weird frequency through her hearing aid that forces the monster to back off without her even know what happened. She finds her brother and they wait together. The dad had a plan. If they get separated or whatever the kids wait at a designated spot. The daughter, who thinks the dad hates her because of the little brother’s death, decides she’s going off without waiting because she thinks the dad doesn’t love her enough to come save her. 

But of course, he does.

This is the part that really mad me sad.

He comes to save the kids and encounters the monster because the son cries out. He tries to kill the monster, unsuccessfully, and gets knocked over. At this point, the son screams out a warning and that’s when I know. Old John, is not going to make it. Not because he was hit, but because he wants to save these got damn, muthafuckin kids. So he stands away from them and screams out loud. Another family member killed before their eyes.

Mom is in the house watching it all unfold on the monitor.

Why didn’t she turn away???

The kids follow through with the back up plan and head to the house with mom. The monster is determined to kill them all, but mom is ready with the shotgun. The daughter finally notices that the monster has some issue with noise feedback in whatever auditory body part they have and drives over the monster.

They are all relieved until it bounces back up for one last scare and the mom shoots it with the shotgun. The shotgun blast is nothing but a mating call for every other monster in the area and they (the monsters) all come running.

In case you guys are wondering, the son was holding the baby in a corner trying to keep him calm. 

It ends with the mom locking and loading the shotgun and the daughter turning up the transmitter and prepares to send out a blast of feedback to blow them off the map when they show up at the door.

Very much like my fear of quicksand, I used to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the end of days via Zombie Apocalypse or some type of contagion. After careful consideration, yesterday, I realized, who on earth wants to be one of last people to survive? What is there to look forward to but daily terror and anxiety and a horrific death? I know that humans have a deep and basic urge to survive by almost any means, but really “death is better than bondage” and it certainly seems better than living in very rational fear day in and day out.

I loved this movie so much, but I probably won’t see it again. Too scary. I like to contribute to the box office sales, but this one will have to soar without me. I totally recommend, though, if you like suspenseful thrillers.

Also, see Ready Player One. I might talk about this one, might now.

Also, also, see Unsane and Acrimony. I’ve been hesitating with Tyler Perry for a while, but he didn’t really disappoint with this one. Or let’s say Taraji P. Henson didn’t disappoint.