‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ review: If the cat dies we riot

The prequel to 2018’s hit thriller, A Quiet Place: Day One thrives on a fresh tone, killer tension, and lively performances.

Back in 2018, A Quiet Place became the talk of the film industry while solidifying John Krasinski and Emily Blunt as everyone’s favorite Hollywood power couple. A few years (and a global pandemic) later, A Quiet Place Part II welcomed theatergoers back to the cinema with a truly awesome sequel. Now we have the third installment in the series A Quiet Place: Day One, but there’s a catch: A setting before the events of the first film and Krasinski no longer at the helm. Is this prequel as memorable and intense as the first two films?

Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) and her cat Frodo are living in a hospice facility as she is receiving treatments for her terminal illness. The leader of her therapy group (Alex Wolff) decides that he’s going to take all the patients into the city for a show and some pizza. After the show, Samira is walking down the busy city street when we begin to hear unsettling signs: siren’s blaring, helicopters and jets, traffic jams, and panic. Just then, fire balls crash down from the sky and these large alien beasts begin ripping through the screaming people in the streets. The survivors have realized what we the audience already knew; the aliens are blind and attack based on sounds. Samira and some of the other survivors, including Henri (Djimon Hounsou, who we saw in A Quiet Place Part II), witness the military blowing up all the bridges and telling the survivors that boats are coming in for evacuation. Samira takes Frodo and decides to make her way through the city where she runs into a man named Eric (Joseph Quinn). These two (and Frodo) trek through the city and the challenges they face not only test their will to live, but their spirit.

New tone, same terror.

The success of the first two films came from the brilliant direction and vision of Krasinski. The complete silence except for the intense moments that required noise, the unique creatures, and the slowly increasing tension that builds so perfectly through both films. In this film, director Michael Sarnoski (Pig) brings a brand new tone to match the different storyline. While those films felt like horror films, Day One feels more like an action/sci-fi thriller. Because we start the story before the aliens arrive, we get to see and hear the world in a way that wasn’t possible in the first two films. As the invasion begins, the sounds begin to become sparser and the tension builds. The setting of New York City as opposed to the open farmland in the original creates an increased level of carnage and claustrophobia. 

Purr-fect casting.

The casting choices are a highlight of the film. Nyong’o and Quinn have excellent chemistry and provide a much deeper connection with each other and as individual characters. The world is ending, and she has a terminal illness, but all Samira wants is the pizza that she was promised. While these two actors gave fantastic performances, the true star of the film had to be Frodo the cat. There could’ve been a million aliens charging at the survivors and it still wouldn’t be as tense as every time Frodo either ran off or was forced to go underwater. I found myself getting so excited when Frodo would pop back up and be ok and unamused by what’s happening around him. Whoever decided that Samira needed a service cat in this film deserves an award.

The bottom line.

With a different time period, new characters, a new location and a new director, A Quiet Place: Day Onecontinued the tradition of being a pretty great addition to this growing series. The slow transition from pre-apocalypse to post-apocalypse adds a completely different feel to the film that put it into a new genre. Throw in a cat named Frodo and you have yourself one heck of a prequel to a truly well-done film series. 

A Quiet Place: Day One is now playing in theaters everywhere. You can watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures. You can read more reviews from Tyler Carlsen here.