Film Review: A Quiet Place: Day One makes a virtue of actions over words

A Quiet Place: Day One

• A Quiet Place: Day One
• ★★★★☆
• Cinema release

A Quiet Place: Day One (15A) is a prequel to the ‘Quiet Place’ movies that opens with Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), a poet dying from cancer, being persuaded by her nurse to join a hospice outing to New York, during which the planet is invaded by alien creatures who drive humanity underground.

We know already, of course, that the aliens hunt by sound; and so Samira, with very little left to lose, decides that she will quietly venture out into the devastated city to satisfy her dying wish — one last slice from Harlem’s finest pizzeria. 

The movie tells us very little we don’t already know about the ‘Quiet Place’ universe, and makes no effort to explain where the extra-terrestrials have come from, or why they are so determined to wipe out the human race; that said, these enormous arachnids, a homage of sorts to the Alien movies, make for deliciously terrifying monsters in what is a very effective creature feature.

Making a virtue of the need for silence, director Michael Sarnoski ramps up the tension by allowing the characters only the bare minimum of whispered dialogue, which in turn provides a platform for Lupita Nyong’o to deliver a superb physical performance as she negotiates a series of close encounters with her alien foes.