Silence Speaks: 'A Quiet Place: Day One' Delivers Chilling Origins of the Soundless Survival Saga

Promotional Poster, Image by GameRant

A Quiet Place: Day One is a prequel to the Quiet Place franchise directed by John Krasinski. The story takes us back to the very beginning of the first day when the Earth faced its apocalypse with the invasion of sound-sensitive aliens. The story begins with Samira, cast by Lupita Nyong’o, a published poetry author who is dying of cancer and living in hospice. As she had joined on a trip to Manhattan to watch a marionette show, her trip was cut short when aliens began to invade the city, terrorising and killing anything that made a sound. Although the movie is a prequel to the Quiet Place series, it does not require the audience to watch the first two movies, besides some relations to the second movie, because the story was more of a side story featuring the story of different characters who had to experience the fear of the living in the “silent world”. 

From the first scene of the invasion, the film dives the audience into a heart-pounding survival story, amazingly capturing the chaos and terror of humanity’s first encounter with murderous sound-sensitive creatures. The direction was similar to lots of post-apocalyptic films, blending in suspense and emotions. The cast did a great job by delivering a powerful display of character to portray the intensity of the film. The cinematography emphasising the atmosphere along with the creative sound design to heighten the tension was a good emphasis on the “Shhh…” factor in the film. 

The story of Samira was truly the highlight of the story, despite all the chaos in the world, her only goal was to get pizza from her old neighbourhood for the last time before she dies. The aliens themselves were secondary to Samira and together with a law student, Eric, who feels comfortable around Samira, joins her to help achieve her goal. Despite the fear everyone had of dying from the aliens brings no difference to Samira since she had already lost hope in living and watching her live through her past memories was heart throbbing yet beautiful as she persevere through her fears of death and reaches her destination along with Eric. The film definately had its jump scares and suspense but this is not a horror experience but a story of a strong women who had taken one last journey to find herself and bring a happy closure to her life.