A clever and claustrophobic creature-feature that proved to be a chilling success, the original A Quiet Place ended with a cliffhanger of sorts…the closing shot of Emily Abbott (Emily Blunt) cocking a shotgun and steeling herself to face up to lurking creatures.
The global pandemic may have delayed the follow-up, but now that it is finally here, A Quiet Place Part II delivers tense thrills, clever character development and more than a few real moments of horror. It is a tense post-apocalyptic chiller that moves with an easy momentum and is packed with clever moments and astute performances.
Directed and scripted by John Krasinski, the film opens with a flashback rather than following directly on from the original. Reprising his role from the original, Krasinski’s Lee Abbott joins his fresh-faced family at a family baseball game, which acts a striking backdrop for the arrival of those alien monsters who hunt by sound.
The film then jumps to 474 days later with Evelyn dealing with the death of her husband and trying to gather items from their ravaged family home as she is forced to head out into a terrifying world with deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and her newborn baby.
Barefoot and quietly walking for miles, they bump into paranoid old family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy) who grudgingly agrees to help. But Regan becomes convinced there is a community out there somewhere who have escaped the aliens, so she decides to head off by herself.
The film soon tracks two courses. Regan and Emmett head off looking for a safe haven, but end up finding a new kind of danger, while Emily, Marcus and the bambino hunker down at an old train yard and fend off those pesky aliens.
It is interesting that to an extend Blunt’s character plays second fiddle to Millicent Simmonds, who is nicely resolute and smart as a determined teen who seems to have found a way to take on the aliens. She is the one embarking on a desperate journey while Blunt is largely on child protection duty.
The horror set-pieces are well staged and genuinely chilling at times, and while the film never tries to be desperately clever or ground-breaking it instead choses to deliver a series of tense and nail-biting moments that work especially well on the big screen. The film has opened already in some territories and is set to be released in the Middle East on June 10.
US, 2020, 97mins
Dir/scr: John Krasinski
Producers: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, John Krasinski
Cinematography: Polly Morgan
Editor: Michael P Shawver
Music: Marco Beltrami
With: Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds, NoahJupe, John Krasinski, Djimon Hounsou
