Critic Reviews

The opposite of the soulless franchise extension it could've been, A Quiet Place: Day One delivers a prequel that elevates the series to new heights.

A Quiet Place: Day One, the startlingly effective prequel to the 2018 blockbuster about noise-sensitive aliens that devour anyone who’s ever annoyed a librarian, hits Manhattan with a bang, a nasty body count and a fair amount of audience suspicion.

It’s likely the best Manhattan mayhem film since Cloverfield, and it’s also a downright excellent Hollywood blockbuster, if an entirely unexpected one.

As with the others in the series, this is not an upbeat picture, but it is effective and unsettling without being too gory.

Sarnoski is working on an auteur wavelength. He often lets the momentum stagnate just enough so the viewer can truly take in the staggering annihilation of a city now in ruins, full of death, and inherent quiet beauty. None of this would come close to fruition, however, without Nyong’o and Quinn’s stirring performances.

What the film does well though is deliver a precisely balanced combination of jump scares, intense situations and confrontations with truly horrible creatures. It’s an effectively scary story, and it’s through the silence of the audience that you can measure this film’s success. Punctuated by some powerful emotional delivery, the audience is able to connect with characters meaningfully, distracting them from convenient story factors and encouraging willing disbelief.

Nyong’o, a prestige actress who moonlights as the world’s most expressive scream queen, does wonders with the nuances of Sam’s sorrow, the tug of war between acceptance and fighting for her life.

Against all odds, this is the best movie in the series. How wonderful it is to be surprised.

While it shares plenty of DNA with the first two films, it has its own distinct character. It's a compelling and moving watch.

Sarnoski has crafted a tonally cohesive but low-key drama that happens to be interspersed with moments of white-knuckle terror. Appropriately enough, A Quiet Place: Day One is more of an urgent whisper than a shout.