A Quiet Place Part II (2021)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

Sequels are dangerous, especially in horror, and the unexpected (yet long-awaited) follow-up to the 2018 smash hit A Quiet Place hits a lot of the red flags. It's louder and faster, more expensive and expansive, and feels often derivative of other sci-fi horror. It doesn't really change the formula from the first movie, unless you count the bizarre switch from almost exclusive sign language communication to mostly whispered communication. As such, this movie has a lot more dialogue in it; it makes sense, as one of the four main characters is now dead (RIP zaddy Abbott) and we can hardly expect other characters to know how to sign. But even the three survivors of that family often whisper to each other while signing, which just seems like cheating after the first movie made us terrified to even breathe out loud.

But A Quiet Place Part II gets a lot of stuff right, and its conviction and sense of dignity for its characters take primary focus here. We begin with a flashback to "Day 1," when what looks like a giant burning asteroid -- or spaceship -- streaks through the sky above a small town kids' baseball game. As the nervous crowds disperse for the relative shelter of their homes, violent spidercrab-like monsters attack, apparently attracted to anything making significant noise. It's a nasty way to open this film, and works best because of its sudden, brutal violence. It also clarifies something notably absent from the first film: the monsters do not appear to eat people, but rather simply enjoy slaughtering their victims. In the middle of town, they slice and dice with their javelin limbs, or simply smash their prey to a bloody pulp, but there's not an indication that they are hungry or even carnivorous. Perhaps they hate sound so much that they just kill whatever makes noise, rather than "hunting" noisemakers?

We then leap forward in time over a year, to the aftermath of the first film's climactic and sudden ending. Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) leads her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) out of their destroyed farmhouse, apparently having fought off the additional monsters that attacked them after their father Lee (John Krasinski) sacrificed himself. Evelyn's newborn baby, literally fresh out of her womb, has been safely stored in a soundproof trunk with a supply of oxygen, but who knows how long that will last?

We have no clear indication of where the family is headed, though they may not know either. We've seen other fires at night on the hillsides, so we suspect a few other pockets of families might exist. As their defense, Regan also carries an amplifier, which when plugged into her hearing device (that otherwise doesn't seem to work), releases feedback that seems to be the only thing to weaken and bewilder the monsters. Marching beyond the borders of their farm and its sand-covered pathways, the family steps into new thematic realms as well as geographical ones. Part one seemed to focus on the sacrifices on makes for family and the domestic horrors of having that threatened; part two keenly shifts into the potential need to sacrifice for others, even strangers. It's a haunting reminder of what we've all had to consider during the past year, which makes the film (planned to be released over a year ago, in March 2020) terrifyingly prescient.

Approaching an apparently abandoned steel foundry, Evelyn hits a trip wire attached to a mess of glass bottles, summoning monsters instantly. Fleeing through the debris field, Marcus is caught in a bear trap. His screams, paired with her panic, drive the movie into full-octane terror that almost never lets up, much like the first movie. Here, the game is less novel, less interesting, but never less than thrilling. Krasinski ratchets up the tension with every scene, demonstrating at even more intense levels his uncanny ability to jump between various characters in various locations to tell the same cohesive story. Moreover, each character deals with impossible circumstances and almost always rises to the occasion.

While the first film terrifies us with sound -- and this one does, too -- what's scariest about this new installment is its unexpected attention to physical violence. Once the family starts meeting other people, especially their bereaved neighbor Emmett (a chillingly efficient Cillian Murphy), we get the sense that the people still alive might be as dangerous as the monsters. He suggests in his introductory, very creepy scene, that the people still alive are not worth saving. And he's also proven right, somewhat; one scene near the lurch toward the climax features a group of menacing humans; the only thing scarier than a group of clearly desperate and violent men trapping you and preparing to do something is when they're all silent. The whole movie is very The Walking Dead, and by the time our heroes finally locate a safe community, we are fully aware that the zombies -- er, monsters -- will arrive shortly afterward, with deadly consequences.

And while the proceedings aren't as wildly unpredictable as in the first, there's nothing wrong with Kraskinski's impeccable writing or directorial brilliance. A Quiet Place is a rarity in the genre for several reasons, but a major plus is its remarkable lack of subversion. So many popular horror movies lately are deeply subversive, and Kraskinski seems almost to use that new standard to his advantage, by utterly ignoring it. His robust and graphic approach to horror is the kind of balls-out, "what you see is what you get" action that has fallen out of vogue in recent years; even so, he's never exploitative, he treats his characters and his audience as intelligent, and he respects the craft more than he respects cheap thrills.

Given that this movie is a nearly perfect sequel -- meaning that it broadens, intensifies, and slightly changes the game while remaining mostly true to the spirit of the original -- and that it came from a movie we all thought would be standalone, I found myself immediately wanting a part three by the end of this film. If the first movie ended suddenly -- not really a cliffhanger -- with Evelyn taking control of her family and their situation, this movie ended with an even stronger character development in the two older children stepping up and into their adulthood. It's the kind of bravura filmmaking that drove me to tears even as I inched toward the edge of my seat in fear. And it's the kind of movie that, really, has to be seen in cinemas.