#Creature movies how to
Moon (2009)ĭuncan Jones sure knows how to make an entrance. Millicent Simmonds, who plays their daughter Regan, is deaf, which brings an emotional grounding in the film, making it somehow more immersive, subversive, frightening, and real. They are parents, their kids are in danger, she is pregnant, babies cry. Krasinski’s real-life wife Emily Blunt plays Evelyn, and together they bring a deeper fear to the movie than most science fiction thrillers. The film is about protection and survival. This makes for pure motion picture storytelling, amplifying character development while muting the anguished distress. The Abbott family has been communicating nonverbally for 89 days. We only know they are blind, and hunt by sound. We are never told where the aliens came from or why they are attacking. Krasinski forces the audience to sharpen its focus by limiting the most visceral sense to express horror or relief. The first words are spoken about 40 minutes into the film.
The silence is almost deafening in the 90-minute film, which only has about five minutes of dialogue. It is the last noise the child will ever hear, and his helpless parents can’t even gasp in shock, or they will also be dragged into the fatal unknown. The first sound we hear in the film is a happy one, a kid’s toy space shuttle beaming waves of sonic joy on a bridge in the woods. It isn’t a dismissive complaint from annoyed grownups it is the key to survival against alien invaders. The old adage “children should be seen and not heard” has never been more true than in John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place.