A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)

A Quiet Place was a bit of a surprise.  It wasn't perfect, but it was an entertaining throwback to the 1950s sci-fi horror films where, as it looks like humanity is on the brink of extinction, a solution is found to the problem.  The first film had a perfect ending, cutting off just as the deaf girl Regan discovered that the creatures were sensitive to certain high frequencies.  Playing it caused them pain, sometimes stunning them for a time, but usually forcing them to open up the armored plating around their faces and exposing the only sensitive part of their body, allowing them to be killed.

Despite the original movie being good on its own John Krasinski returned as director for A Quiet Place Part II, wisely keeping his character deceased, although we do see him briefly in the opening as it shows what happened the day the meteors fell to Earth and unleased the hibernating aliens on our planet.  That presents a problem for a movie like A Quiet Place: Day One.  We already know what happened and, if any of the main characters from the first two should appear, we know well in advance what happens to them.  Krasinski does intend for there to be an actual third part, despite the second part again ending in a way that gives hope to humanity: Regan and her surviving family finding an island community with a working radio station to broadcast the sound that disables the aliens.  In this case Krasinski stepped back, contributing somewhat to the story, but putting it mostly in the hands of director Michael Sarnoski. 

Samira (Lupita Nyong'o) is a patient in a hospice outside of New York City whose expiration date has passed.  She realizes that she will be dead soon, so she has given up caring about most things, finding herself ambivalent to everything except music, pizza and her cat.  She accepts a trip into the city to see a show with a number of other patients and her nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff).  While there a mandatory evacuation warning is given as meteors fall on the city, followed by the emergence of the creatures, who immediately attack anyone and anything that makes any sort of sound.

Since the creatures cannot swim the bridges are destroyed and an attempt to rescue as much of the population by ship is attempted.  Knowing that she has little time Samira decides to head to Harlem, where her father used to play in a jazz club.  Along the way she picks up a follower, a British law student named Eric (Joseph Quinn), who sticks with her despite her attempts to get him to leave.  Together the two team up to try to survive long enough for Samira to make her one last visit to honor her father.

What A Quiet Place: Day One does right is not retread what happened in the first two movies.  This could have been a cheap cash-in or a CGI-heavy action film.  Instead, the only character from either film that appears is Henri (Djimoun Hansou), who is on the island in the second film, and that is brief.  The story focuses on Samira, Eric and the cat moving through a devastated New York to get to Harlem.  It may seem like a trivial idea on the surface, but it brings some meaning back into Samira's life as she contemplates the end, especially since her lack of care about her own impending death is superseded by a need to care for someone else.  It never turns into romance, but more a good friendship. 

The ending is a bit too Hollywood, although it isn't terrible, and of course Lupita Nyong'o gives yet another fine performance, as does Joseph Quinn.  I have no idea how they found a cat that could keep quiet through everything, although it (or they, since two cats played the part) does react like a cat normally would in many situations.  It never comes down to the cliched idea of having to keep the animal quiet, although we know that most animals were wiped out by the creatures along with humans by the time the first movie starts. 

It is less of a traditional monster movie than the first two and, at this point, doesn't contain many surprises, but A Quiet Place: Day One still manages to give the audience something other than the usual empty spectacle most films provide these days.  Hopefully once Krasinski gets to making his last part that will be all, as the amount of money these have made usually provides studios with too much temptation to drive the franchise into the ground. 

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)

Time: 99 minutes

Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff

Director: Michael Sarnoski