‘A Quiet Place: Day One’: Shhhhhhh, Don’t Startle the Cat
A cromulent prequel has some good ideas but two very, very bad ones.
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Sometimes horror stories seem easy1. Just take some common fear—heights, for example, or being stalked and possessed by a bloodthirsty demon—and write a story about idiots who dive headfirst into that fear2. Or take a difficulty level that you might find in a video game—like, say, having to be completely silent in order to avoid alerting a lethal enemy—and play with it in a more realistic setting.
Personally, I hate stealth levels in video games. My lack of grace and coordination extends to gaming. If I win a game or finish a level, it’s usually because I sprayed ammunition indiscriminately everywhere for five minutes while screaming (or I have cheat codes!). I once got stuck on the stealth level of Return to Castle Wolfenstein for years because of a poorly timed quicksave, and I am still salty about it3.
A Quiet Place sounded like a pitch from someone who’s been playing Hitman for several weeks while huffing glue: Aliens that hunt by sound arrive, society inexplicably collapses4, and now survivors have to navigate the world in complete silence at all times, because even the slightest noise will bring hordes of gross aliens5. It’s a workable premise for a movie, and the original was satisfactory in execution. Is it a cinematic universe that needs sequels and expansion packs? Probably not. We get it: Be quiet or you’ll be eaten. But the first film made $341 million, and the sequel made $297 million6, so it’s not terribly surprising that we got A Quiet Place: Day One, which set on the day the aliens invade.
It’s not a bad movie in terms of workmanship and entertainment value—if you didn’t get enough scenes where people have to creep around in complete silence despite terror, physical pain, and bodily functions7, you’ll definitely enjoy this. The film has some decent ideas to freshen up a premise that’s already been sucked dry, but it’s also undermined by two huge mistakes: An unnecessary character, and that fucking cat.
It’s Called ‘This Place Is Shit’
A Quiet Place: Day One follows Samira (Lupita Nyong'o), a terminally ill woman who joins a field trip from her hospice facility into New York in the hopes of getting some real pizza. She brings along her service cat, Frodo (played by two cats, Schnitzel and Nico), and both have to find a way to survive when the big-eared aliens arrive and force everyone to learn sign language super quick8. After the initial attack, Samira takes shelter in a local theater, where she meets Henri (Djimon Hounsou), a character who eventually appears in A Quiet Place: Part II. When another person freaks out, Henri winds up murdering the man in front of his young son, then promptly vanishes from the story until the very end.
When she strikes out onto the street with Frodo, Samira is followed by a young, traumatized lawyer named Eric (Joseph Quinn), and the two reluctantly forge a bond as they struggle to survive9.
Eric doesn’t show up until after the initial disaster, right around the point where Henri vanishes. Which leads me to wonder why they bothered giving Henri all that screen time and the moral dilemma around killing someone to save the others just to remove him from the story. The answer is simple: The creators wanted a connection to the larger franchise and Emily Blunt wasn’t available. Which is unfortunate, because replacing his early presence with Eric would have made more sense, since Eric is the main secondary character here. Having Eric traipse into the story so relatively late while Henri is removed just makes it all feel very disconnected. Just as you’re feeling for Henri’s experience, he’s gone, and you have to start all over developing empathy for Eric.
Don't Rub His Belly. He Doesn't Like That
The other problem is the fucking cat10.
I get it: Giving Samira a service cat softens her character (which is very bitter and sharp-edged11) and adds a touch of whimsy to a film in which aliens eat a bunch of noisy people and turn New York City into a crater within about 24 hours. Giving your characters animals to care for is an easy and effective way to give them some dimension.
The problem? It’s a cat. In order to sell the action sequences, when crowds of people go crazy or Samira and Eric have to run for their lives, the filmmakers have to constantly find ways to get rid of the cat, usually accomplished by having it simply run away. Then the cat finds its way back again, sort of magically12. This is not really how cats work. Even allowing that Frodo is a service cat and might have some training that lowers the level of cat it is, it’s still a cat, and the moment it runs away during the alien attack is realistically the last time you see it. The fact that the story has to keep ditching the cat every time the pace picks up tells you everything you need to know about the utility of its presence13.
Plus, this is one badass cat. It goes underwater (twice!) and comes out looking determined. It never makes a single noise louder than a soft purr—I have five cats, and trust me, every single one of those dimwitted bastards screams at the top of their lungs at the drop of a hat. It’s perfectly comfortable existing near big, loud alien creatures, and evinces the sort of fictional intelligence animals only have in movies. The cat causes problems for the story. It does nothing to solve them14. And ultimately that weakens the film, because you’re either rolling your eyes as the cat magically reappears after the latest attack, or you’re distracted by the cat’s intermittent presence.
Ah well, not every cash-grab horror sequel can be a work of genius. A Quiet Place: Day One is perfectly fine, greatly supported by Nyong'o’s solid performance. And those cats are talented mofos that I hope star in future projects portraying preternaturally smart animals that somehow survive the apocalypse.
NEXT WEEK: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice shows how it could have been better.
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Especially when you’re like me and terrified of a surprisingly long list of things, beginning with close up magic and ending with being smothered by cats in your sleep.
The good news for us writers is that there will never be a shortage of idiots in the human race.
Let’s not even talk about the Half Life level where bombs are rigged around the nuclear missile and every false step ends the world. I still see that level in my nightmares. Half Life 3? Yes, please.
Apparently you can bomb a city into the stone age every day for years and people will still crawl back to sweep up and feed their cat, but aliens arrive and it’s just Game Over for the human race.
<Jeff survives the initial invasion, sits down for a rest, stands up and every joint in his aged, ruined body pops simultaneously like a shotgun, run credits with Curb Your Enthusiasm theme playing>
Meanwhile, my last royalty check totaled $1.45. <pours whiskey, stares off into middle distance, Lonely Man Theme from The Incredible Hulk plays in the background>
I eagerly await A Quiet Place: Hold the Fart.
Whenever The Duchess and I try to communicate wordlessly it’s fiasco, because I think every word in the English language can be represented by the same hand gesture and also that you can hear my thoughts if I think them hard enough.
Similar to the way I will always find the other introverted misanthropic asshole at every party and we cling to each other in a desperate bid for survival.
I love my cats and cats in general, but if you want to fail at surviving the apocalypse, bring a cat along. Little fuckers will screw you, then creep back and eat your dead body.
I’m bitter about dying someday, so I can only imagine how bitter I’d be if someday became next week.
To be fair, when I was a kid my cat Missy escaped the house and was gone for three days, then magically reappeared outside covered in scratches and refusing to explain herself.
This is, apparently, how the Great Writer in The Sky treats me as a character, which is equal parts insightful and hurtful.
Is Causes Problems for the Story, Does Nothing to Solve Them the title of my memoir? Come on, we can do better than that.