A Quiet Place (dir. John Krasinski)

Imagine a horror film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, profusely sweating and terrified by the atmospheric dread on screen. That’s what director John Krasinski has managed to achieve, with the help of Bryan Woods and Scott Beck’s blacklist favorite script - in this terrifically original creature feature. Teaming up with his real-life wife in Emily Blunt, Krasinki’s is the director, producer and lead actor of this guaranteed genre hit, and his low-budget horror gem is likely to continue making waves through the summer, much like it did during it’s premiere last month at South By Southwest Film Festival.

All the best horror films take you on a journey, testing you on your threshold for nightmarish dread and endurance to deal with all your greatest fears. It’s about going through something, perhaps even a masochistic exercise. For me, the most successful horror offerings have sent you through a rollercoaster of emotions, whether they are achieved through merely terrifying you and or messing with psychologically. “A Quiet Place” is able to do all of this quite brilliantly, and its down to it’s originality, and high concept premise.

The earth has been ravaged by extra-terrestrial creatures, hellbent on mankind’s destruction. They hunt and eviscorate humans with their keen sense of sound, hiding in the shrubbery until they can pounce on unwitting passers by. Those who have survived- in what is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland- must keep their day to day routines to that of a whisper. Enter the Abbott family (although unnamed in the film, a postbox at the farm they reside in alludes to this) - Dad (John Krasinski), Mom (Emily Blunt), Daughter (Millicent Simmonds), Son (Noah Jute) and younger-son (Cade Woodward) who wade through a local drug-store - navigating the bombsite-like surroundings as quiet as mice - but tragedy strikes and they must pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives.

The rest of the drama takes place nearly a year later. The Abbott’s - including the heavily pregnant Mom - survive in their delipidated family home on a farm surrounded by six-foot crops. Dad has adorned the basement of their shelter as a shrine to the ensuing alien threat - with newspaper cuttings, video surveillance and a DIY desk to work on his SOS radio. For fear of an attack, they communicate with each-other through American sign language, which is suggested to be the main reason they have survived for so long. Their daughter is deaf, and wears a cochlear implant which is intermittently successful, and therefore they have grown up using this method of communication.

For the first twenty minutes of Krasinki’s assured genre masterpiece, there is no dialogue, and Krasinski is able to set-up the sullen existence the central family currently exist in through the use of the odd tender moments of familial companionship, from the odd dance between the clearly smitten parents being a true highlight, to cosy reminders of the importance of silence.

Yet when he needs to the former “Office” star is able to muster up enough dread, jump-scares and terrifying nervousness in the smallest of horror tropes. And when the scares come, they’re assuredly handled. Clearly heavily inflicted by Ridley Scott’s Alien, our critters are 10-foot tripod beasts with an audible scowl scarier than anything in the regular B-movie schlock. Though Dad has managed to create a system to keep the alien invaders at bay - including the non-verbal communication and walking barefoot everywhere - when Dad takes his son for some well-needed survival training, he leaves his daughter with her heavily pregnant mother - much to her anger and the delight of the preying monsters.

The final hour or so of the films running time is dedicated to superbly orchestrated horror set-pieces, ranging from a bathtub scene to rival any early birth scene in film history, to a fantastic sequence featuring our two young actors fighting off the creepy-crawly onslaught inside a grain silo. You almost feel like there will be a respite to the madness, but thankfully for genre fans: it's endless. Before our characters have seemingly thwarted one attack, another one comes around the corner - and under the supervision of a director who has only dipped his toe into the romantic comedy waters previously, is impressively terrifying and entertaining in equal measure.

On a performance level, it's been noted that Krasinski fought hard with Paramount to cast a deaf actress to play the role of his disabled daughter, and it's that kind of dedication which makes "A Quiet Place" , for my money, the best horror film of the year. Simmonds turn as the eager-to-grow up eldest child is another nuanced and enigmatic turn from the "Wonderstruck" star - as is Noah Jupe's (Suburbicon) performance as the petrified son, unable to deal with the consequences of the realization that he might one day have to take care of everyone - even at such a young age.

But front and center of this terrific genre thriller are real-life married couple, and Hollywood power couple Emily Blunt and John Krasinksi. It's no secret that the two have enormous chemistry, and are a delight to see on screen - yet they clearly also have a affinity for working together and bring the very best out in each other, here. Blunt's shrieking and frightening complexion is permanently set to constant dread though her ability to bring her role back from the realms of horror-movie girl pastiche is a compliment to her immense talent. Krasinski's Dad is inherently charismatic when he needs to be - especially during a terrific waterfall sequence with his son - but when it calls for it, he shows that his badass routine in Michael Bay's "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" was not a one-hit wonder (he's soon to be seen as Jack Ryan in the Amazon TV series).

Expecting to make a modest $30 million dollar opening weekend birth, against it's $17 million dollar budget - you can be damed sure that John Krasinski's brilliant horror masterpiece will tear apart the box office this easter holidays. There's a spectacular balance between the terrifying and the tender on display here, helped no-end by a cast on the top of their game, a script which doesn't bog itself down with heavy-handed plot exposition, and a attention to detail unbridled in the creature-feature canon. If walking out of the cinema on a geek-high is what you seek for when going to the movies, "A Quiet Place" is the only place you should spend your time.

Rating 5/5/