A Quiet Place: Day One

A franchise should always deserve praise for trying new things, keeping the level of quality consistent across films and attempting to expand the wider story.

Playing the prequel card is a divisive one when looking to tick those boxes but it’s something A Quiet Place: Day One pulls off with aplomb.

Whilst it’s a shame to delay the resolution to the story after Part 2, reverting back to the first day of the disaster enables an entirely different formula and a fresh approach to the horror set pieces. However, it does lose the complete originality of the near-silent film tension of the original.

It’s a super solid prequel though. Having no link to the Abbott family would be sad if not for the deep and layered dynamic between our new leads Sam and Eric.

Both have huge depth and their journey feels real and earned. Sam is facing her own mortality before the apocalypse also lands at her door and this adds another layer of meaning.

The set pieces are different enough to the first two to stand out: by its nature this film is a lot more noisy than its predecessors and the city setting gives new excitement but it does fall back a little too often on the ‘tension-silence-jump scare’ formula which knocks it down a peg.

Some of the imagery and sequences though are pulse-pounding and might prove able to sit with some of those previous shocks, some of which just need one-word descriptors (nail, bathtub, silo.)

It’s such a solid concept that it would be easy to create a cash-grab thriller but thought and care has clearly gone in to this to create something that stands alongside its forebears and gives us new characters and stories to enhance the A Quiet Place world.

Another great addition to this excellent series, let’s hope the final (probably) fourth film keeps the standard.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️