I was pretty sure I didn’t want or even need a sequel to A Quiet Place. That movie – directed, co-written, and starring John Krasinski – was as close to perfect as a horror thriller could be. Its magnificent pre-credits sequence, both heart-stoppingly tense and heartbreakingly tragic, sets up the world and everything you need to know in under 10 minutes. It is genius.
So much so that when I heard just how much money the movie had made at the box-office, I began to fear the worst. That it would spawn the obligatory, strained sequel, forcing an unnecessary narrative, thereby undoing the first movie’s understated brilliance.
So here it is, our first real look at A Quiet Place Part II.
I really should have had more faith in John Krasinski.
Now, I realise that I’m making the amateur mistake of getting excited about a film based on nothing more than a two-minute trailer, but hear me out.
Right off the bat, the trailer subverts our expectations by opening with a flashback that runs in stark contrast to everything the first movie was. It is loud; both visually and aurally. It is busy; pulling your focus from one side of the screen to the other. It reminds you that there is a larger world outside the Abbott farmstead. It reminds you that there are still stories here to be told.
We’re then thrown back into the deathly silence of the first film. The now fatherless Abbott family having set out into the big bad world, hoping that there’s something left that’s worth saving. Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou join the cast as human foils to the Abbott’s way of life, with the both of them providing a much darker take on where the human race goes from here. “The people that are left are not the kind of people worth saving,” says a jaded Murphy, setting up what looks to be the core conflict of the movie.
While Krasinski isn’t necessarily treading down a familiar path with his sequel, he isn’t escalating the action either. This isn’t Aliens or Army of Darkness. We’re not likely to see Evelyn Abbott, armed with a shotgun and chainsaw, go all Ash Williams on hordes of creatures. Instead, the movie seems to be taking a page from The Walking Dead playbook, and delving into the philosophical questions and moral quandaries that arise when the Abbotts, outside the safe confines of family, are finally forced to confront the wider world.
A Quiet Place Part II is directed by John Krasinski, and stars Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe, along with Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou. The movie lands in cinemas in March.
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