★★★★1/2
A Quiet Place: Day One is so much better than it has any right to be! My god, it’s fantastic! It’s an intimate, tense story about human connection and how tragedies can pull even strangers together with two absolutely captivating performances from Nyong'o and Quinn, shepherded perfectly by Michael Sarnoski. It’s a surprisingly soulful monster movie that lives up to the first two Quiet Place films by doing something completely different. I was kind of floored by Day One, which uses the Quiet Place sandbox to tell a story of falling in love with a cat and craving a slice of pizza while you try not to scream as your life crumbles around you. It’s scary and exciting for sure, with amazingly intense sound design, but also super emotional and impactful in ways I was not expecting. It’s a beautiful horror film — a reflective, almost meditative drama that occasionally reminds you it’s also a monster movie. It genuinely feels like Sarnoski is channeling Linklater’s Before trilogy, telling the story of two people bonding as they wander a city, and it works so well because Sarnoski prioritizes the human element. Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn complement each other so well with their performances. Their chemistry takes the film to a whole new level. And the cat was fantastic! Michael Sarnoski delivers a suspenseful and heartfelt story packed with tense sequences, poignant messages, and a lovable pair of protagonists. It's an emotionally draining/chilling experience about two broken souls finding hope in each other. Perfectly paced and includes an immaculate sound design. There’s something so invigorating about this one — it’s a tense, surprisingly tender thriller that I just fell in love with. I didn’t expect to, but I even shed a tear. A Quiet Place: Day One is an excellent, anxiety-inducing standalone prequel that’ll leave your heart racing. I held my breath from start to finish and ended up loving this movie so much!
You thought the review was over… but I have a few more thoughts on what made me love this movie:
Can’t believe what Michael Sarnoski got away with in A Quiet Place: Day One, smuggling a disarmingly intimate meditation on death, morality, and hope into the chassis of a franchise prequel. It’s a better drama than a disaster-thriller, but this was really nice. Sarnoski subverts what you expect a spin-off prequel to be: his set pieces favor emotive close-ups instead of bombastic action. There’s little interest in “lore.” The plot is of a personal kind, affecting little beyond the character’s lives. We should have more movies like this! A Quiet Place: Day One won’t show up on best-of lists, but the deluge of franchise content is easier to bear when filmmakers are allowed to be shamelessly themselves when they make these things, and this is very much a movie made by the guy who did PIG. That’s a huge success in my opinion.
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