A Quiet Place Part II

While it might not have the surprise factor or emotional impact of the 2018 sleeper hit, this sequel is just as tense and suspenseful as the original A Quiet Place.

Premise: Following immediately on from the end of the first film, the remaining members of the Abbott family are forced to leave their farm and search for other survivors of the alien infestation. But could the human remnants be just as dangerous as the aliens?

Review:

I was a huge fan of the first A Quiet Place (it was my third favourite film of 2018), even though I wouldn’t call myself a fan of “horror” films per se. This sequel has a similar tone to the first film, insofar as it’s tense and packed full of nail-biting suspense, but you could argue that it’s more of a “thriller” than a “horror” (if, like me, you’re not really a fan of the “horror” genre generally).

Like the original film, this sequel opens with a visceral prologue, which this time is actually a flashback to “Day 1” of the alien infestation. (At this point, I should make clear that this review will have spoilers for the first film). This flashback gives returning writer/director John Krasinski a chance to return in front of the camera as well, playing father and husband Lee Abbott following his heart-wrenching sacrifice in the first film. And immediately you can see the sequel’s increased budget, as there’s probably more action, stunts and CGI in the opening sequence of the sequel than there was in the entire original film.

“…matches the tension & intensity of the first film…”

But this isn’t a case of just throwing more at the screen for the sake of it – the prologue still matches the tension and intensity of the first film, just now on a slightly larger canvas. And in fact, the same could be said for the film as a whole, given that it sees the Abbott family forced to leave the relative safety of their farmhouse and seek refuge in the wider world.

The main “new” character introduced in this sequel is Emmett, played by the always reliable Cillian Murphy. It’s not a spoiler (given that it’s confirmed in the opening flashback sequence) to say that Emmett is someone that the Abbott family know from their hometown, so when they met him again in the present, he’s not a complete stranger to them. However, what’s really interesting about Emmett (and Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of him), is that it’s immediately clear that the Emmett who has survived over the last year is not the same person that he was in the opening flashback. Whether or not he can still be trusted, and what a year of surviving the alien infestation has turned him into, are the key questions that linger over his character.

“…a film that is ideally watched on the big screen with an audience…”

The toll that simply surviving has had, both on an individual level, and on the societal level, is a central theme in this sequel. While not nearly as bleak as, say, The Walking Dead, the characters in this film do have to consider whether the kind of people that are left are the kind of people worth saving. In this regard, it’s Regan Abbott (played impressively again by Millicent Simmonds) who represents the hope for the future. With her discovery at the end of the first film of the aliens’ only weakness, she believes that there could be hope for a future beyond simply hiding and surviving.

But while Regan is looking at a bigger picture, Evelyn Abbott remains firmly focused on the immediate priority of protecting her three children, including the helpless (and still unnamed) newborn baby. It felt to me like Emily Blunt got a little less screen time in the sequel compared to the original, as the emphasis shifted more towards Regan’s (and even Emmett’s) storylines, but Evelyn still feels like the glue that holds everything else together. And while it could be said that Noah Jupe didn’t have a lot to do as Marcus Abbott, it was nice that they kept his character threads consistent (such as his understandable pathological fear of the aliens), rather than ignoring what came before simply to give him more to do in the sequel. Marcus is the only character who arguably makes “bad, horror-movie, decisions” to further the plot, but they are all born out of his intense fear (rather than just being “stupid” decisions), so from a plot-perspective, they’re more forgivable. Equally, while Regan also makes some questionable choices, they’re all character-based ones, so even when they might be “wrong”, they don’t feel unearned.

“…keeps the tension levels high from start to finish…”

This sequel is a film that is ideally watched on the big screen with an audience – so it’s great that that is now finally possible again (and the decision to delay the film’s release until cinemas re-opened was the right one). When I saw this in the cinema, you could feel the audience jumping and gripping the arms of their chairs in unison, and hear the collective sighs of relief at key moments – all of which reminded me what a communal experience cinema can be.

Like the first film, this is a lean 97 minutes long, which allows it to keep the tension levels high from start to finish. And while the veterans Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy are as excellent as you would expect, Millicent Simmonds continues to impress (given that she is arguably the lead character in this sequel), and John Krasinski solidifies his status as a director with a fascinating future ahead of him.