How A Quiet Place is not a typical horror movie
By Shah Shahid
The recently released A Quiet Place was one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year, but it’s not your typical horror film, as the marketing may have you believe.
The John Krasinski written, directed, and starring movie is all about a family trying to survive in silence, in a world where monsters that hunt by sound have taken over. The movie has been extensively marketed as a great horror movie, but it truly isn’t one.
Please be aware that going forward, this article contains a lot of spoilers for A Quiet Place.
No Exposition or world building
Unlike usual horror movies and stories involving a post-apocalyptic setting, A Quiet Place does not provide much exposition whatsoever about what happened in this world, and how the setting became what we see.
What it does do, however, is show us a wall with some newspaper clippings, and a white board with one word questions, presumably posed by the father Lee, (John Krasinski) in what looks like his own research into the monsters.
While it doesn’t really answer any questions, it’s enough information about the setting so as to not distract the audience with inquiries, but satisfy us enough to become invested with the characters, and their story. Which is what this movie is really about.
Focus On Relationships
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A Quiet Place is more about this family’s survival, than defeating the monsters or saving the world. Even the main conflict is less about the monsters and their motives, and more about the Abbot family, fighting to live, and hold on to whatever moments of normalcy they scrape together.
The mother, Evelyn, (Emily Blunt) is shown as doing homework with their young son Marcus (Noah Jupe) in a world where it doesn’t make much sense to learn about division. But that scene is crucial to showcase the sense of normalcy that two parents are trying to provide.
Even the third act, showcases a great moment between Lee and his estranged daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) when his last words (or signs) to her, were him saying he loved her. This act brought to end a plot point from earlier where the two experienced tension in their relationship due to a mistake by Regan that resulted in the death of their youngest son.
I can’t think of a ‘horror’ movie in recent times that featured such character building that a death scene was that emotionally gut wrenching and tear inducing.
No gratuitous money shots
The Krasinski directed film further veers away from being a typical horror movie, with its low priority of gratuitous shots of gore, guts or blood. For a monster movie, or rather, a movie with monsters, we’re not treated to much gore or brutal shots of the monsters killing.
Not that Horror has to involve those elements, A Quiet Place relies more on the suggestion and possibilities of horrible things happening, than the horrible things themselves.
About love & loss
Ultimately, the takeaway from A Quiet Place isn’t about the world becoming a better place. Or about characters that showcase bravery in the face of chilling death. Not at all. The movie is more about love, and loss and holding on to the ones you love, by any means necessary.
The true hero of A Quiet Place, in the sense of a character showing true heroics, has to be Blunt’s Evelyn. The physical and emotional depths that the character has to go through, to protect her family, and new-born baby, is astounding.
In a world where noise can literally cause your death, Evelyn goes into labour, with the presence one of the monsters in her house. In one of the most intense and harrowing scenes of the movie, Evelyn is not only able to protect herself, but also successfully give birth to her child, with monsters roaming her house.
Next: A Quiet Place Movie Review
It’s moments like that, as well as Lee’s sacrifice in the climax, that truly makes A Quiet Place more about the intense lengths that parents will go to, in order to keep their children safe. And that is what A Quiet Place becomes about.
Do you feel that A Quiet Place is an actual horror movie? Let us know in the comments below.