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Movie Review: A Quiet Place: Day One

Mike Tyrkus

As did the previous entry in this series, the latest installment – A Quiet Place: Day One – succeeds in providing an incredibly entertaining and worthwhile prequel to the earlier films in the series.

Taking place as the invasion begins in New York City (that is, well before the events of A Quiet Place (2018) and A Quiet Place Part II (2020)), the new film follows a hospice patient named Samira, or Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) after she becomes trapped in the city after the aliens attack. There she finds an unlikely travelling companion in Eric (Joseph Quinn) and the two fight to stay ahead of the sound-sensitive aliens and reach the escape boats heading for sea.

What is fascinating about the way this chapter play out is that the concept of world-building is dispensed with. It is assumed that everyone has seen (or at least knows the basic concept of) either of the first two films – and that is all that is needed to enjoy this entry. As the characters are introduced to the aliens hunting them and learn their strengths and weaknesses, the audience has a leg up on them and this makes the tension all the more palpable as the inevitable outcome is far more apparent to the viewer than it is the characters onscreen.

That being said, there is a remarkable amount of tension throughout the film that is heightened by the fact that this is essentially a story about just two people – and a cat (more on that later) – trying to survive. Furthermore, like the last two entries in the series, the horror here is legitimately achieved and not simply relegated to shock or gore. Simply put, this is a solid, scary horror film.

Taking over the reigns from John Krasinski, writer/director Michael Sarnoski works from a story he and Krasinski developed based on the characters created by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck. Sarnoski manages to give the film the same claustrophobic feel of the previous entries, by utilizing the audience’s pre-conceived knowledge of the aliens and the series to jump right in without an inordinate amount of exposition. But he also allows the characters to breath and establish themselves as he did with 2021’s Pig.

Nyong’o also factors into this approach as she is introduced as a storyteller of sorts that is stifled early on my not being able to communicated with other characters other than through hand gestures or the occasional whisper. Similarly, Quinn’s Eric is initially a shocked and confused character that clings to Sam as she appears to be a strong character to him that he seems to be comforted by as he follows her throughout the city. The bound these two form is an organic one that develops not out of necessity, but of shared experience and understanding.

Lupita Nyong’o in “A Quiet Place: Day One.”

Throughout her adventure, Sam is accompanied by her support animal – a cat named Frodo. This cat is remarkable in that it not only supports Sam, but it also takes care of her to the extent that it constantly saves her life in unexpected ways throughout the film. It is almost as though the cat serves as a surrogate guardian angel of sorts, watching over Sam as she traverses the wasteland of alien-devasted New York. This allows Frodo to become as integral a character as either Sam or Eric is to the overall arc of the story.

Pat Scola’s cinematography manages to showcase the life within and subsequent death of New York City, both before and following the alien attack, giving the film an additional aspect that previous entries only hinted at rather than showed. The music provided by Alexis Grapsas wonderfully underscores the claustrophobic aloneness that the city quickly assumes. This makes for an immersive experience that echoes from beginning to end.

While the previous entry in the series proved to be one of those rare films that ended up being better than the original, the third film in the series, A Quiet Place: Day One, somehow manages to do the same and successfully take its place alongside both earlier entries as a superb horror film in its own right.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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