A couple weeks ago, I got the chance to see an advanced screening of A Quiet Place: Day One.
It was… all right.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a perfectly enjoyable movie. However, it was markedly different from A Quiet Place.
Day One is definitely a summer blockbuster, an action-packed thrill ride with lots of running punctuated by characters freezing in silent terror. One of the first things I noticed was that the movie was scored. It was the first tip off that the movie was in an almost completely different genre than the original. While it attempts (and somewhat succeeds) to have the same kind of emotional punch that the first movie did, it trades dramatic tension and emotional terror for jump scares and explosions.
Definitely well acted by Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn and I was disappointed to see Djimon Hounsou so sparingly used.
If you’re the summer blockbuster type that loves big splashy effects and action, you will most likely enjoy this movie. If you loved that the original was a powerful testament to love in the face of horror steeped in atmospheric tension, you might want to skip Day One and just rewatch the original.
