It's oh... so... quiet... (doo doo doo, doo doo doo...)

It isn't very often you find a film that is probably better viewed on a small screen in the comfort of your own home, unless you're some sort of real-life Tony Stark with your own home cinema or one of those thankfully seldom-seen pretentious dickheads with a projection TV you're not supposed to play video games on for some reason (probably due to the static background burning into the screen if you leave them too long, but really? Who does that?). Certainly with the staggering array of add-ons, special screens and surround sound technology all designed to make you part with yet more cash, sometimes it's really nice to just stick a DVD on, put your feet up and wait for the cat to jump up on your chest to utterly block your view at the pivotal moment of the movie. The joys of pet ownership. There are some movies I'll go out of my way to catch on a big screen though, typically ones with large explosions, larger than life monsters or a heady combination of the two, but there was one very recent movie that I'm actively glad I waited for on DVD so that it wouldn't be ruined by the inevitably loud and obnoxious general public unable to stop chatting or tear themselves away from their mobile devices for the unreasonable sounding hour and a half. These are probably the same people who could barely sit an hour long IT exam without needing a fag.

A Quiet Place is thoroughly deserving of the hype, despite a couple of slight rankles that I'll come back to and happily goes on to that relatively short list of 'Films Anger in a Man Suit didn't hate'. Better than an Oscar is that.

  

I've lost count of horror movies I've seen that disappear up their own traumatised arses trying to find a satisfying resolution for the plot they've gaffer taped together around set pieces, jump scares, creepy McGuffins and metre upon metre of lovingly rendered foam latex viscera drenched in gallons of bright red corn syrup. You're on a hiding to nothing though, seeing as your average horror fan is often much less concerned with decent character development than they are about new and exciting ways to turn all but a select few of the cast into prime minced long pig. It's why Saw and Insidious went steadily downhill into a cess pool of their own fetid juices and it’s why so many others don't even get out of the blocks. Face it; everybody and their Terror Dogs nowadays is clamouring for a cinematic universe with actually bothering to put the work into making their movies watchable.

  

A Quiet Place is clever in that it is an incredibly simple premise; you make a noise and you're done. It also isn't afraid to dive straight in and hit you right in the feels and you're never in any doubt that at any given point absolutely anyone might bite it. The horror here is a sense of creeping dread that runs through everything that occurs rather than taking the very easy route of throwing jump scare after jump scare at you, relying on the loud noises to get you out of your seats. Imagine not being able to do common, everyday tasks for fear of being torn to shreds by an 8 foot tall beastie made predominantly of sharp things and ears. Imagine then, being on the very brink of giving birth in all its inevitably cacophonous glory. Even when you think the family is just about winning, the peril just keeps piling up and up with frightening regularity giving you barely a chance to draw a hushed breath. It's a triumph that you care enough about the family that you actively don't want any of them to get munched, even when you know that at some point it will happen. Quite the opposite of most modern horrors where the cast are either so cretinous, generic or obnoxious that you can't wait for them to have their internal organs become external ones or for them to be wearing their spleen as a hat. Even worse when they're so forgettable you don't give a monkey's furry little left nut whether they survive or not.

As good as it is, it's not without a few slight issues; I'm not convinced a family so good at surviving by being silent would risk having another baby to effectively replace the one that got eaten (that's not really a spoiler), regardless of their sterling efforts in hand-crafting a sound-proofed bunker. I don't completely understand why they choose oil lamps over electric (when they're clearly able to run electric lights silently) especially when a raging fire is going to cause all kinds of noisy shenanigans, and there seem to be a couple of moments where the monsters appear to be able to locate people even when nobody is making a sound, flying in the face of the movie's own logic.  I also fail to believe that when faced with an alien threat with super sensitive hearing, not a single military force or weapons manufacturer on the planet was able to come up with the fairly straightforward solution to the problem, when a dude in a shed can manage it by accident, mucking around with a whole host of audio equipment and somehow not accidentally causing any level of potentially lethal feedback at all. The reason The Quiet Place gets a pass on all this is because everything is done for the sake of genuine drama and tension; nothing feels like a throwaway set up gag or cheap pop and it does all lead to a satisfying ending. The payoff isn't ever about action, or gore for gore's sake, it's about atmosphere and character, both of which are done really well. In fact, all the really grim stuff happens off camera, despite leaving you with no question as to what horrors are occurring.

I'm genuinely glad I waited to watch this on DVD. This is no marquee, blockbuster Halloween horror release drenched in entrails and demanding attention like a Millennial with no internet access; it's a measured and thoughtfully crafted movie that draws you in over the space of 90 odd minutes. Besides, I can all but guarantee I'd have ended up murdering some ignorant dickhead in the cinema for ruining the tension by reaching to the bottom of his bag of Minstrels or slurping the last of his Coke at any one of the many portentous moments. Jackasses like that are why we can't have nice things.