I Watch Films: A Quiet Place: Day One

 

A Quiet Place: Day One

Sam is suffering from terminal cancer, lives with her cat Frodo in a hospice in upstate New York, is generally annoyed about the situation. Convinced by a nurse to go into Manhattan for what turns out to be a puppet show, something odd happens, strange things in the sky, then something lands.

It’s the sound-attacking aliens for A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II. Sam is knocked unconscious, wakes up in the theatre and is warned to keep quiet. She and Frodo have a number of near misses as people discover things that make noises (generators, doors, cars etc). The military announce from the air that the creatures can’t swim and people should try and evacuate from the docks. Sam decides not to follow them going the other way. The street filled with people inevitably makes noise, causes a panic and Sam and Frodo are separated.

A law student, Eric finds Frodo, is led back to Sam. Sam tries to get Eric to go to the port but he follows her to her apartment. There is a supply of painkillers for her. She explains; she’s going to die anyway, so she wants to do the things she intended to do before she died; eat pizza in the jazz club her dad used to play at. They go and do that, have a nice time, then head for the river. A guy we’ve seen before, and also in A Quiet Place Part II, spots them. Sam leads the monsters away using car alarms to let Eric and Frodo escape.

The monsters of A Quiet Place series were designed with one film in mind, we don’t see them initially in that film, then we get glimpses and eventually they are fully revealed and their weaknesses discovered. This prequel explores other strategies of dealing with them, strategies of distraction. No one comes up with the idea of a noisemaker and an IED though.

But this is to be distracted by the surface of the film, of making noise and being destroyed. Rather it’s about coming to terms with death and going out on your own terms. Sam is going to die, we’re all going to die, whether soon from noise-seeking invulnerable alien monsters, in the near future from cancer (especially if the medication isn’t available because of noise-seeking invulnerable etc) or just in general. The question is, what are we going to do before that? Stick to what gives us joy, save who we love I guess.

Watch This: Monsters roam menacingly as people come to terms with their mortality
Don’t Watch This: Apparently the role of sick people in an emergency is to die, though perhaps not quietly and out of sight