I ACTUALLY WOKE UP SCREAMING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

By SULAGNA CHATTERJEE

When I got the invite to watch “A Quiet Place” at MAMI’s Year-Round Programme, I was very apprehensive. I’m not even ashamed to admit that I’m one of the most scared-of-horror-movies people in the entire world. My sister has had to drag me to watch Conjuring 2 and Lights Out in the past couple of years, and yet I’m not used to the jump-scares, the sound effects and the horrifyingly scary sequences which give you a heart attack. But I decided to go nevertheless, challenging myself to push my limits. As I told a couple of my friends that I was going to go for the movie, they warned me that it seemed VERY scary. And scary it was.

The John Krasinski and Emily Blunt starrer “A Quiet Place” is a post-apocalyptic almost-silent movie where the instructions to survive are very easy and clear – KEEP QUIET! There’s a creature that hunts you if you make a sound, and when the movie begins, the family has already survived 89 days. The Abbots have made a safe haven for them in their house and have modified everything around them to make it as sound-proof as possible.

The cast of the movie makes the entire movie seem very natural – an extraordinarily good-looking John Krasinski, a beautiful and pregnant (WHO HAS SEX AFTER AN APOCALYPSE?) Emily Blunt, a spectacular deaf actor Millicent Simmonds and my absolute favorite Noah Jupe. The movie is a very well-setup family drama in a post-apocalyptic setup, where one can’t talk or express anything – either joy, sadness, pain or fear.

However, what truly sets the movie apart for me is the fact that the “creature” isn’t established much throughout the movie except for when they attack people. The survivors and the audience don’t have enough idea about the creature, and the lack of information about it makes it scarier.

There are a lot of genuine scares in the movie, and that’s the reason I can ignore a couple of random jump-scares that Krasinski put in the initial part. Imagine not being able to scream in pain when a nail goes through your foot or when you’re about to deliver a baby all by yourself? These are the scares that the movie gives you, and you feel like you’re a part of the movie.

The cinematography, the lighting, and the locations are absolutely surreal and serene, and for a while you actually do want to live there, without the horrifying creature, obviously. The “Red Means Run” lighting-changing concept was very well-played.

John Krasinski has proven that he’s not just a spectacular actor, but a visionary director too. And what I’ve really learned from the movie is how intense a movie can be even with the least amount of dialogues. Overall, a great scary watch and I actually woke up screaming in the middle of the night yesterday.

Go watch it, people.