The Quiet Place franchise has risen in cinema over the last several years.

John Krasinski wrote and directed the first two films which were about a family trying to survive the Earth is overtaken by a group of extraterrestrial monsters that hunt not based on sight but on sound.  The rules of this universe are very simple: make a sound and you die. The first two films were able to Showcase Krasinski’s talents as a writer and director and highlight his wife Emily Blunt’s acting ability as the maternal mother desperate to keep her family alive.

Believe it or not, there was a time when people criticized the first two movies for being too pro-family, pro-gun, and pro-life. So for the third movie, Paramount Pictures has decided to remove all three of those elements from the story to shift the focus to a completely new city and a different protagonist. Take away the guns,  take away the family,  and take away a protagonist who wants to live and you now have the third installment entitled ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’.

Set in New York City the day Giant meteors fell from the sky and brought upon the world horrific-looking creatures that were killed by sound,  a terminally ill cancer patient named Sam is struggling to live out her final days with any real motivation.  Even as the world around her begins to end rapidly,  the only thing that motivates her to keep going is to get one last slice of New York Pizza and it doesn’t matter if she has to survive the apocalypse to get it.

As Sam tries to survive the elements she meets a Law student named Eric who is all alone and looking for someone to survive with.  Sam and Eric decide to team up and figure out a way to escape Manhattan,  a city that is swarmed by monsters; the only thing that offers them the advantage is the elements of a giant loud City.

For fans of this franchise, Day One is a quiet place movie in name only.  John Krasinski is not back as the writer or director of this film neither is Emily Blunt here to sell the film from a character perspective,  and what you’re left with is a movie that is a shell of itself in many ways.

Lupita Nyong’o’s last opportunity in the realm of horror came from the Jordan Peele film ‘Us’, In a quiet place on day one,  Lupita betrays a woman with a nihilistic mindset as she knows that due to her illness, her time is very limited meaning survival is not on the top of her priority list. 

Unlike the first two movies where audiences were compelled to be invested in our protagonist’s survival, Day One makes us feel sympathy for a character whose best-case scenario doesn’t have much time left. The problem is that the acting of the first two movies set a high standard with Emily Blunt being the woman at the helm.

Character-building is a huge plus in the film, as we experience multiple characters overcoming self-doubt and depression to aid those close to them. But here, that plan goes out the window. Outside of the character of Sam the film only gives us a handful of characters and a film that is set in its biggest setting ever. On one hand, we get the character of Ruben who is Sam’s caretaker that we see very briefly in the first act of the movie before he is snatched away not giving us much to go off of.

When Ruben is taken out of the movie he is later on replaced by the character of Eric who suffers from being a needy and an effeminate Excuse of a man. Michael Sarnoski is responsible for the writing and direction of this film and his only prior cinematic experience is in the Nicholas Cage film Pig from 2021. 

Without saying much there is a notable drop off in quality across the board with this movie and the movies that preceded it. The film suffers from an intense amount of character-induced stupidity. Our surviving characters make decisions that are devoid of any Common Sense even in a horror setting.

For example, at the Midway point of the film, a giant rainstorm allows our characters to move around with a bit more freedom. As the rain and the Thunder have suppressed the individual noise that they will make moving about, what do our characters decide to do with this window?  Return to her apartment and fall asleep until the next morning when the storm is over. 

There’s no subtle way around it.

A Quiet Place Day One is easily the worst film of the franchise thus far and a film that proves the age-old saying if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

1.5/5

Don’t forget to Subscribe for Updates. Also, Follow Us at Society-Reviews, YouTube,  Twitter, Odysee, Rumble, and Twitch