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A Quiet Place

Earlier in the week I went to see A Quiet Place and as someone that doesn't watch a lot of horror films, it was not what I expected.


The premise of A Quiet Place is pretty simple: There are monster out there and if you make a sound, they'll come for you and it's safe to say that I have never felt more tense in a cinema (And on a side note, that was the quietest cinema I have every been in).

The film's main dialogue comes from sign language with a few rare vocalised sentences. This means, for the most part, that we're focused on how the characters move, how they act rather than what they say and I was shocked at how quickly I felt attached to the characters: I didn't want them to be in this situation, I wanted them to be safe but, shockingly, they weren't.

The pace of the film is just enough to make you think that there's a safe respite ahead and there are gaps in the chaos before a sound crashes through the screen snapping you awake. There are moments that are set up long before the characters will interact with these moments but it's enough to keep an audience on edge as they watch.

Overall the film was not what I expected and had far more heart (no pun intended) than I had bargained for in a horror film. At it's core the film is about family and how a family can survive in a world where they cannot make a sound even when things go wrong. I wouldn't say that this is a straight up horror film but I can see bits of Alien in how the "monsters" are handled but there is so much more to this film than just horror and I would thoroughly recommend seeing it on the big screen.

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