The much-anticipated horror sequel arrives in Irish cinemas on Monday.
Aside from being a brilliant movie, the outstanding memory of watching A Quiet Place in the cinema back in 2018 was the audience experience itself. I’m talking people walking out of the screen with full tubs of popcorn because everyone was too afraid to eat their snacks, lest they somehow inadvertently alert the creatures on screen to their location.
It was a truly unforgettable cinema-going experience, and we’re happy to confirm that A Quiet Place Part II absolutely follows suit, with another series of nerve-wracking, hand-over-your-mouth inducing set-pieces.
Admittedly, the movie surrounding it doesn’t quite match up to the intense, claustrophobic nature of the original, but these are obvious side-effects for a sequel which (a) simply doesn’t have the element of surprise that the first movie did and (b) expands the world that we’re living in for these 97 minutes.
Still, in much the same way that 28 Weeks Later or – for you video game fans out there – The Last Of Us Part II did, loosening the grip of raw terror ever so slightly does allow for a bit more emotion and humanity to seep in.
Picking up directly after the events (and, briefly, directly before) of the first movie, we see Evelyn (Emily Blunt) try to make it to a neighbour’s home with her three young kids, now armed with the knowledge of how to defeat the sound-hating creatures that have killed off most of humanity.
They eventually find fellow survivor Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who we first meet during an early, prequel’y scene with Lee (John Krasinski) during the very first day of the creature’s invasion. Emmett has seen some of his fellow survivors give into their most monstrous drives, and advises against Evelyn’s family – who want to take the news of how to kill the creatures to as wide an audience as possible – from travelling any further.
Without giving too much away, the movie is pretty much divided into two from this point on: one part being a scary road trip and one part being a scary home invasion. Once again, director Krasinski has created scenes of pure tension and horror, weaponising space and silence to such a degree that it would surely make Hitchcock proud. Blunt, Murphy and the kids all bring their A-game, once again proving that just because your movie is about killer monsters from space, it doesn’t mean you should suddenly stop taking it seriously.
By expanding the world of A Quiet Place, we get a better sense of how humanity is attempting to survive and adapt to this particular apocalypse. And while it’ll likely only add more questions to the plot hole pile (we’re still waiting to find out why they didn’t just set up their home in the first movie by that loud, raging waterfall), you won’t be asking any of those questions while you’re watching the movie.
Because you’ll be too scared of making any noise to be thinking of them. It is a movie made to be seen in the cinema, another experience to be shared with complete strangers, all united in fear. Welcome back to the big screen, everyone!
A Quiet Place Part II arrives on Irish cinemas on Monday, 7 April.
Clips via Paramount UK
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