A Quiet Place: could've been quieter

So my friend's and I made the treacherous journey to Regal Hollywood 20 to see A Quiet Place, the John Krasinski high concept horror flick sweeping the nation. With a stellar premise and high quality acting A Quiet Place is a fun time. Would I watch it again? No. Did I think it was something mind blowing? No. Did I have a good time? Yes!

I suggest everyone should watch A Quiet Place. Though I had qualms with it-many times the characters did things that broke the world's own rules without any consequences-I think it was a good ride. The acting is spectacular, particularly by Emily Blunt and deaf actress Millicent Simmonds. The actors' dedication to learning sign language, and putting themselves wholeheartedly in their roles, is what made this movie enjoyable. Had it been a different set of actors I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.

What I didn't like about the movie is that for a high concept film it could have been smarter. Like many a monster movie, once the monster is revealed they're not as scary. A Quiet Place has a scary concept, but the monster looks too much like the Demogorgons from Stranger Things to come off as original. The monsters are also revealed waaaaaay too early, making them a less tense threat.

In the beginning of the film I was sold. One of the high points in the movie is the tense opening that sets the tone for the rest of the film. We didn't know what the monsters looked like, but we got glimpses of how they worked and how the characters react to them. I wanted more of the movie to be like the opening, where we see what the world is like rather than just an okey-pokey farm. The film needed a better blend of this scope on the whole world and on this family; how do the two interconnect?

What bugs me the most about A Quiet Place is that it isn't all that scary. If I had watched this movie in my room, as opposed to a theater, I wouldn't have jumped as much. All of the scares in this film are audio jump scares. Big loud noises to amp up a scare are annoying. Since audio is the whole point of A Quiet Place, I thought the was going to be smart enough to avoid doing the obvious. But it did the obvious.

Amongst all this negative there is still light. As I said before the acting is phenomenal, and the cinematography is outstanding. Unlike most horror movies which only have a few good shots and sequences, this movie is chock full of iconic chase scenes and tense situations.

A Quiet Place is a movie that makes you think, but rather than making me think about the world and how I'd act in it, it made me think about how I could make the movie better. With a bit more critical thinking involved, A Quiet Place could have hit the nail on the head, but many people think it's doing that already so power to them. But I think the film could have been much better than it already is.