Review: A Quiet Place part II

For an end of the world disaster series, the Quiet Place movies definitely keep things small scale. The first film was largely set around a farm; this sequel (with a bit of prequel bolted on the front) involves an epic walk over a hill to a disused factory, where much of the suspense involves the opening and closing of a door. Big budget films are back!

To be fair, what made the first film so memorable was that literally every move anyone made could be their last, as noise-hating alien monsters would attack out of nowhere at the slightest sound. That film ended with the surviving humans - Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and baby / noise machine Abbott - figuring out a way to use Regan's hearing aid to stun the aliens long enough to kill them. As we soon discover here, sometimes that's not enough.

After a prequel sequence showing how things went to hell, we pick up where we left off: Evelyn's husband (writer / director John Krasinski) is still dead and the farm is still on fire, so after grabbing a few essentials - and a quick cameo from the nail in the step that was so memorable in the first film - they hit the road. With only a shotgun and portable speaker to broadcast the feedback the monsters hate, even the shortest journey is extremely risky, and they've got a long walk (with no shoes) ahead of them.

Eventually they meet up with former neighbour Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who has moved into the aforementioned disused factory for safety even though the whole place is full of teetering chunks of scrap iron just waiting to go crash. Emmett's basically given up after the death of his wife and says (very quietly) they should too, but Regan has bigger plans - and a mysterious radio station broadcasting the same song over and over is a big part of them.

A Quiet Place part II was one of the first films pulled from release when Covid-19 started shutting things down, and watching it in a crowded cinema it's not hard to see why. More than most horror films, this one works because of the shared experience, and the audience's experience is one we share with the people on the screen - in a film where silence is vital and the slightest sound could have dire consequences, we're all but forced to keep quiet to hear what's (not) going on.

(now come up with a movie concept that forces people to keep their phones turned off)

While this is definitely a small scale thriller (and the story's few attempts to broaden things out don't really make a lot of sense), that works to its advantage in creating a world where doing literally anything could get you killed. A quick walk down the (ruined) shops becomes a series of knife-edge scenes, and Krasinski takes full advantage of this. He's constantly dragging out moments for maximum tension and throwing in just as many jump scares as creepy moments where we notice something moving in the background before the characters do.

If there's any real flaws here, it's that it lacks the truly memorable set-pieces of the first film. Relying just a little too much on Marcus being a dumbass doesn't help, but Regan stepping up to be the real hero more than balances that out. For a film that's basically one long creep through a haunted house waiting for a sudden sound to break the tension - only here, the sudden sound makes things worse - this gives her a surprisingly strong character arc. The film's better for it.

- Anthony Morris