A Quiet Place: Day One

Dear fellow readers,

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

Imagine something like this happened in our world. A day when something strange and unexpected plummets into our world and we have no choice but to survive by being quiet. You could barely breathe, cannot sniff or cough. You have to tread lightly and watch where you walk. Any small sounds alerts these creatures to your exact location and they will devour you within seconds.

A Quiet Place: Day One is a prequel. Samira "Sam", a pessimistic terminally ill cancer patient, lives at a hospice outside New York city with her cat, Frodo. Reuben, her nurse convinces her to join the group outing to a marionette show in Manhattan.

While in the city, meteor- like objects fall from the sky. Shortly after, hostile extraterrestrial creatures attack the gathered crowd and passersby. In the chaos, Sam is knocked unconscious.

Sam later wakes up inside the puppet theater with Frodo and other survivors, including Henri, who signals her to remain quiet. Announcements from military helicopters warn civilians to stay silent and hidden until the authorities can rescue them. Sam witnesses fighter jets bombing and destroying the bridges leading out of Manhattan, preventing the creatures from leaving the island. One of the survivors begins to panic, and Henri accidentally kills him in the process of keeping him silent.

The power grid cuts out that night, causing the building's emergency generator to activate. Reuben turns it off, but the noise attracts a creature that kills him on hearing his shirt rip. A distraught Sam takes Frodo and leaves for Harlem. The military announces it is preparing to evacuate civilians by boat from South Street Seaport because the creatures are unable to swim. Groups of people start leaving buildings towards the evacuation point, but the volume of their movement in crowds creates noise that alerts the creatures, who attack them and cause a stampede. Sam flees in the opposite direction and is separated from Frodo.

Eric, an English law student, escapes a flooded subway station and encounters Frodo, following him back to Sam. She attempts to convince Eric to go south to the evacuation point, but Eric is in shock and follows Sam back to her apartment instead, where she hopes to find pain medication. While there, Eric learns Sam is an acclaimed and published poet. The next morning, Sam heads off alone for Harlem, but Eric finds her and they continue their journey together. They accidentally alert the creatures and flee into the subway, which has become flooded. With no other way out, the pair are forced to wade through the deep waters, eventually waking a dormant creature that pursues them but drowns while Sam and Eric escape. Sam falls unconscious after the ordeal.

They end up in a ruined church, and while Sam rests, Eric ventures out alone to get Sam's pain medication from a pharmacy, then rescues Frodo from a construction site, discovering a group of creatures led by a larger one feeding on eggs from the asteroids. Sam tells Eric that as a child, she used to watch her late father play jazz at a club in Harlem, and would get pizza with him at Patsy's afterward, something Sam always wanted to do before she died. Eric fulfills Sam's wish by taking her to the club, collecting pizza from another store, and performing a magic card trick to cheer her up.

Eric and Sam see boats in the river, filled with survivors escaping Manhattan. As the two leave together, creatures start to congregate along the shore. Sam gives Eric her jacket along with Frodo the cat, and then runs off to distract the creatures by smashing car windows. As a result, car alarms activate which attract the creatures away from the coastline. Meanwhile, Eric and Frodo jump into the water and are pulled up into a boat by Henri. Eric then finds a note in the jacket Sam gave him, telling him to take good care of Frodo and thanking Eric for reminding her to live.

Content, Sam walks into a deserted street as she listens to Nina Simone's recording of "Feeling Good" on her iPod. Accepting her fate, Sam smiles as she unplugs the earphones and lets the music blare out-loud, causing a creature to appear suddenly behind her.

I believe this prequel shows how it all started. It's quite intense and full of suspense.

The first movie was insane.

Sightless aliens with sharp hearing and impenetrable armor plating have taken over the planet and killed most of the human population. The Abbott family – mother Evelyn, father Lee, deaf daughter Regan, and sons Marcus and Beau – live on their isolated farm in the middle of a forest in upstate New York, and have survived by taking precautions such as laying sand paths to avoid stepping on crunching leaves and using American Sign Language when communicating.

When the family goes into the nearby town for supplies, Beau finds a toy space shuttle, but Lee makes him leave it behind due to the noise it would make if powered on. As they are getting ready to leave, Regan secretly gives him back the toy, but without its batteries. When they leave, Beau takes back the batteries without anyone noticing. While walking back home, Beau turns on the space shuttle, which starts making noise. Almost immediately, Beau is killed by a nearby creature before Lee can reach him.

Over a year after Beau's death, the family has seemingly gone back to normal, with Evelyn several months pregnant. Marcus reluctantly goes fishing with Lee while Regan, upset that she cannot go, visits Beau's grave. While the rest of the family is gone, Evelyn goes into labor and while heading to the basement, she accidentally steps on a nail and drops a photo frame, alerting a nearby creature which enters the house. Struggling to stay silent amidst the pain, Evelyn flips a switch in the basement, turning the surrounding lights around the house red. The creature enters the basement soon after, but Evelyn distracts it with an egg timer and escapes upstairs. Upon returning to the farm and seeing the red lights, Marcus and Lee lure the creature out of the house by lighting off fireworks, allowing Evelyn to safely give birth to her baby.

Regan, seeing the fireworks, runs back to the house. Lee enters the house armed with a shotgun and finds the baby and Evelyn, then brings them into a hiding spot under the floor in the barn outside. The baby cries, alerting a creature into the barn. The creature fails to find the source, but breaks some water pipes. Evelyn wakes up in the flooded hideout with the creature still inside and hides behind the falling water to mask her and the baby's sound.

Marcus and Regan go to the top of a corn silo and light a signal fire to other distant farms, but Marcus falls into the silo and gets stuck in the corn. Hearing this, the creature in the hideout runs towards the silo and attacks Regan and Marcus. The creature's disruptive effect on electronics causes Regan's cochlear implant to emit a high-pitched noise which causes the creature to reel in pain and retreat, breaking a hole in the silo which frees the children. Lee finds Regan and Marcus, directing them to his truck, and is then wounded by a creature. The creature attacks the truck due to Marcus’ screams. Lee signs to Regan that he has always loved her and proceeds to yell to draw the creature's attention, sacrificing himself to the creature in order to allow Marcus and Regan to coast the truck back to the house safely.

Reuniting with a grieving Evelyn and hearing the sounds of a nearby creature, they make their way back into the house and enter the basement, which the creature follows them into. Regan, remembering the reaction the creature had to the high-pitched noise from her implant, places the implant on a microphone which amplifies the noise. The creature screeches in pain and exposes the vulnerable tissue beneath the armor plating on its head, allowing Evelyn to kill it with Lee's shotgun. Armed with a new weapon, the family prepares to defend themselves from an approaching group of creatures that heard the shot.

It's followed by a second film that shows Evelyn surviving with her kids without her husband.

During a Little League Baseball game in the small town of Millbrook, New York, the Abbott family – wife Evelyn, husband Lee, deaf daughter Regan, and hearing sons Marcus and Beau – and other spectators witness a strange meteor-like object hurtle toward the Earth. Shortly after, hostile extraterrestrial creatures emerge from the meteor and begin slaughtering the townspeople. The blind creatures possess armored skin and extraordinary speed and strength, and track victims with hypersensitive hearing, attacking anything that makes even the slightest noise.

Over a year later, the creatures have killed much of the Earth's population, including Lee and Beau. Regan has discovered that high-frequency audio feedback makes them vulnerable, and devises a makeshift method of transmitting the noise from her cochlear implant through a portable microphone. With their home destroyed, the family searches for other survivors. Entering a fenced-off area, Evelyn accidentally sets off a sound alarm, alerting the creatures. As they flee, Marcus steps into a bear trap, attracting a creature with his screams. Regan and Evelyn kill the creature, free Marcus, and run into an abandoned steel foundry.

An old friend, Emmett, takes them to his soundproof underground hideout. Emmett, who has recently lost his family and developed a cynical outlook on life, refuses to help further. Marcus hears the song "Beyond the Sea" playing on the radio, and Emmett says the song has aired continuously for four months. Regan determines it is a hint that survivors are on a nearby island a day's travel to the southeast. She theorizes that if she can reach the island's radio tower the hearing aid's high-frequency noise can be broadcast so other survivors can weaponize the signal. She ventures out alone to find the island but is attacked; Emmett saves her from a creature. Regan persuades him to help complete her mission. Evelyn leaves Marcus and her newborn baby at the foundry to fetch medical supplies in town. Marcus discovers the corpse of Emmett's wife. Startled, he alerts a creature and, in trying to flee, accidentally locks himself and the baby inside an air-tight compartment.

Emmett and Regan arrive at a marina to board a boat to the island. They are attacked by bandits, and Emmett deliberately attracts creatures that slaughter the attackers. When one creature drowns, he realizes that the creatures cannot swim. The two row to the island where a small colony of survivors are living normally. The colony leader reveals that when the U.S. government discovered the creatures were unable to swim, the U.S. National Guard attempted to move people to the islands. However, the chaos from boarding created noise that attracted the creatures, leaving only two boats that made it to the island.

Evelyn returns to the foundry and frees her children before they suffocate. The three hide inside the bunker as the creature prowls the foundry. At the island the next day, a creature that's drifted to the island attacks the colonists and kills the colony leader. At the radio station, Regan transmits the high frequency via the station's signal and plays it over the station's speakers, incapacitating the creature, and then killing it with a metal pole.

At the foundry, Marcus picks up Regan's transmission and plays the high-pitched frequency through his portable radio before shooting the creature dead. Regan leaves the hearing aid connected to the radio station's microphone, allowing the broadcast signal to be weaponized by others.

After watching these films, I could survive but wouldn't be able to stand the dead silence. I'd scared out of my wits too. I loved how "Frodo" the cat had his own fame. Played by Nico and Schnitzel. He's so adorable.

If you like apocalyptic horror films, you'd like something like these movies. Until next read... ciao!