I was excited to see A Quiet Place: Day One in theaters.
A part of that is simply because it has been awhile since I have been to the theater. I believe the last time I went was when I watched Knock at the Cabin last year. The truth is, my closest theater shut down during the pandemic and, now, I have two theaters to choose from. One is about an hour out of my way (and is the one I watched A Quiet Place: Day One) and is falling apart (mostly, a quiet place, I could hear an air conditioning on its last legs through most of the film) and the other is about two hours away.
Another part is that I have genuinely become a fan of the A Quiet Place franchise. The first film directed by John Krasinski I enjoyed so much that it was accepted into the Nightmare Deck (a sort of Hall of Fame I do on The ‘Bib website) and although the second film wasn’t accepted, I still really enjoy it. Thus far, at least, it is a high-quality horror series and one I look forward to. I am hopeful that the A Quiet Place videogame will cement its legacy as a major horror franchise for decades to come.
Unlike A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place: Chapter Two, Day One doesn’t follow the events of either film. As the name would suggest, what we have here is a prequel. The film follows a woman named Samira, played by Lupita Nyong’o (an actor whose earlier film Us has been accepted into the Nightmare Deck), a terminally ill cancer patient who convinces her nurse, played by Alex Wolff (whose film Hereditary has been accepted into the Nightmare), to attend a marionette show in the city. Unfortunately, their little adventure is plagued in tragedy as it happens to be the day that hostile extraterrestrial creatures land on Earth and begin wreaking havoc. Along the way in her fight for survival, she meets a man named Eric (played by Joseph Quinn, who had a breakout performance in the last season of Stranger Things), an English law student who she befriends and is, ultimately, her counterpart for the film.
This time, the film was not directed by John Krasinski, but, rather, Michael Sarnoski, the director of the critically acclaimed film Pig.
What should I say first about this film? I wasn’t certain about how a prequel film would go over. Generally speaking, prequels don’t go over as well as original films or sequels. It is something about the inability to advance a story and the restriction that comes with that often does in a prequel. Of course, that isn’t a foregone conclusion. In theory, a near 1:1 replica of A Quiet Place could have already existed in someplace somewhere else and it wouldn’t step on the toes of the original film. The only thing that can’t change is that dangerous extraterrestrial creatures are wandering the Earth and ripping humans into smithereens.
A Quiet Place: Day One has a certain sense of production and pedigree that is enough to receive a certain seal of approval. Lupita Nyong’o is a likable lead, playing the understandably troubled and defeated terminal patient with not much time left. I am a fan of Joseph Quinn from his work on Stranger Things, and, in this film, he offers both a very different portrayal and a suitably solid turn.
The cinematography is of a high standard, I especially liked some of the ways it transitioned scenes, like using a cat as it wanders the wreckage of New York City to swap between the viewpoints of Eric and Samira.
As prefaced, the film receives a certain seal of approval for its pedigree that receives my support and admiration. Unfortunately, my reaction to Day One isn’t as positive as I would like. I can’t reiterate enough that I don’t believe what we have is a bad film in the least.
Rather, I simply feel like it is a film that doesn’t have very many original things to say and that what it does say tends is fairly cliched and predictable. If I had to coin a term to describe A Quiet Place: Day One, I would say that it feels like a professional good film or like a film that is trying too hard. I feel like the sentiment applies to nearly every aspect of the film. Even by the summary alone, I feel like I would have been able to predict every single thing, beat by beat. It feels too safe, devoid of any new ideas for the genre or the franchise it harbors.
It is less a monster movie or a creature feature, and is more a situational horror drama, with Lupita Nyong’o’s character dealing with the grim reality of knowing the world is facing an unheard of circumstance and, while fighting a terminal illness, things can’t become much bleaker. It is a concept that, when I tell you it, sounds like a good movie. I feel like I could already project the film on the screen for myself without even having to have seen it. I can visualize the tear-jerking, intimate moments without having to see the film. As a film, I feel like it checks off every box in perfectly satisfactory fashion, but it doesn’t offer any insights or depth or moments that I hadn’t anticipated. In the film, Samira wants nothing more than to find this restaurant in the city where she can find herself a proper pizza, and it feels so sentimental and contrived. The story beat feels teed up for you to be sitting there with your popcorn and go, “It isn’t just about the pizza. Not to her.” If you are willing to lap it up, you won’t feel shortchanged.
As far as prequels are concerned, this is a respectable film. I didn’t like it as much as A Quiet Place, nor did I like it as much as A Quiet Place 2, but it wasn’t a disaster. It does the franchise justice and it doesn’t have any moments that left me scratching my head. For that reason, I would recommend it – you could certainly do much, much worse. I mean, it is a good film, just boringly so.
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