The saga of A Quiet Place is full of surprises. The first is that, despite being produced by Michael Bay, it is of great quality. The second is that it showed the great talent of actor John Kransinski as a true master of terror (he directed the first two films with great skill). The third is that, despite Jeff Nichols giving up his post as director of the prequel to take charge of a high-budget science fiction project for Paramount (the same studios as A Quiet Place), the truth is that the direction of Michael Sarnoski (the same as Pig, that wonderful pig and revenge movie starring Nicholas Cage), is equally satisfying.
The premise of this saga is as simple as it is effective: Monstrous and lethal aliens invade Earth to feed on humans, but they have a defect. They are blind. So the surviving humans are forced to try not to make the slightest sound, if they don’t want to be devoured immediately. Krasinski’s films focused on a family, using the strategy used by Steven Spielberg in his adaptation of War of the Worlds, based on the book by science fiction pioneer HG Wells and which Orson Welles brought to the radio causing mass hysteria. Obviously, A Quiet Place also owes a lot to alien invasion films Alien, predator, Independence Day and Signsas well as apocalyptic films The Omega Man and I Am Legendbased on the classic dystopian science fiction book written by Richard Matheson.
This prequel focuses on Samira, a terminally ill poet who faces the alien invasion and has nothing to lose, since her days are numbered. Lupita Nyong’o perfectly embodies (has she ever done it differently?) this woman who wants to spend her last days eating pizza at the place in Harlem where her late father, a jazz pianist, took her. When i was a child.
Samira’s companions on her suicide mission are nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff from Hereditary), a law student named Eric (Joseph Quinn, better known as metalhead Eddie Munson from the series Stranger Things) and Frodo, an assistance cat who apparently understands very well that a cat that meows dies. This is how we will have a film in which our protagonist is going to move from place A to B facing mortal danger, as if it were a version free of The Last Of Us.
The lack of originality is balanced by some genuinely terrifying moments, some moving moments (like the puppeteer), some very good performances and well-constructed characters for whom we will feel empathy (don’t be fooled by Michael Bay’s signature, since This is a tape made by human beings). The cat may be the weakest point in terms of credibility due to his lack of meowing and the fact that he appears and disappears as if nothing had happened, but he is the one who steals the show. It is impossible not to feel anguish and affection for him.
And for those looking for connections between this film and its predecessors, we have Henri, played by Djimon Hounsou, whom we met as an anonymous survivor in A Quiet Place Part II. Krasinski and company may have an interquel planned for us to learn more about this character. For now, we’ll have to settle for a well-made prequel and a video game that will surely have the same quality as its cinematic counterparts.
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