Ivan Radford | On 28, Aug 2024

Director: Michael Sarnoski
Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Djimon Hounsou, Alex Wolff
Certificate: 15

Don’t make a sound or the monsters will get you. That’s the simple rule that made A Quiet Place a rivetingly effective slice of sci-fi horror. Now, a prequel takes us back to the beginning of the invasion that started it all. It’s something we briefly glimpsed in A Quiet Place Part II, but this survival thriller digs deeper into the origins of the acoustically sensitive creatures – and, while that sounds like a recipe for diminishing the suspense, things are even tenser than ever.

It helps that writer-director Michael Sarnoski decides to set events in New York, one of the noisiest places in the world. In fact, we learn in the beautifully portentous prologue, the city has an average day-to-day volume of 90 decibels – the volume of a constant scream. That noise is shattered when a fiery ball strikes from the sky, and a horde of creatures start spreading across the metropolis. But we begin in a hospice on the city’s outskirts, where Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) – a poet with terminal cancer – in on a day strip with her nurse, Reuben (Alex Wolff), and other residents.

Their trip is to a marionette show, which Sarnoski immerses us in with a magical touch of hushed awe – and the theatre soon turns into a refuge as carnage escalates outside. Of course, it’s only a matter of time until Sam has to venture out into the chaos, and the film harrowingly depicts the contrast between the frantic motion of a city stampeding for safety and the stillness of individuals learning the rules of a new game. Sam’s path through that unpredictable, apocalyptic twist on musical statues eventually crosses with that of Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British law student who equally feels like a fish out of water.

Their unlikely friendship, forged in the fires of survival, is beautifully acted by Nyong’o and Quinn. The duo’s chemistry is heartfelt in its vulnerable mutual dependence, in the comfort and companionship they provide each other, in the glimpses of humanity and creativity that they share – one inspired moment involving a mute magic trick in a bar juxtaposes powerfully with an exchange of poetry that erupts in screams during a thunderstorm. Their few, hushed conversations ring with gasping sincerity, but they give remarkable physical performances, from looks and swallowed tears to precariously balancing on railings and fiercely wielding impromptu weapons.

A Quiet Place’s strength was in precisely juggling its simple concept with grounded characters, and Day One achieves that same economy of storytelling. While the inventive juggle of ambitious set pieces shows us new sides of the auditory predators, it never loses sight or sound of the people at its heart, which means the jump-scares get you every time. Michael Sarnoski, who previously gave us the wonderfully understated Nic Cage drama Pig, boils the disaster movie spectacle down to two strangers going to get a takeaway pizza – and in that finds a profound, moving story of people facing an unknown terror and working out how to live, or die, on their own terms. What an brilliant franchise this has turned out to be.

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