A Quiet Place

You might call it a genre. You might analyse the difference between alien colonisation and post apocalyptic fascist regimes. Wherever you go, whatever you do, the future doesn't feel good.

The concept of A Quiet Place is intriguing although the details are flawed. The world, or rather the fragment of life illustrated by a family of five surviving in a big house in the country, has been taken over by TRexulised monsters that cannot see but have intense aural capabilities which means that the sound of a dropped saucer in a basement kitchen could attract an immediate killer response.

Where they come from is never discussed. Nothing is because communication can only be conducted in a vague homemade sign language. It takes time to adjust to silence,

Mum (Emily Blunt) is pregnant. Dad (John Krasinski) is everything a woman wants, attractive, capable, thoughtful and uncomplicated - in other words boring. The kids are normal which means difficult at times and not always obedient. They have adventures, some dangerous, others stupid.

You wait. The audience waits. For the baby. How is it going to happen without cries and whimpers? After the waters break is it curtains?

With futuristic movies it's the little things that matter. Forget about where these carnivorous prehistoric big eared mega reptiles come from, or how they had the smarts to crush Earth's defense mechanisms, and ask yourself how could this family have electricity after a year-and-a-half, let alone lighter fuel, food, a million candles, an alarm clock (tring! tring!), cartridges and Monopoly?

If it doesn't make sense terror dissolves into a puddle of giggles. Blunt counteracts with a full on performance of dumb crambo charades.

No Babies Were Harmed In The Making Of This Film, let's be clear about that.

What can't be taken seriously can't be taken. When the aliens in Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, with their elongated snake-stretched necks, are seeking out Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning in a half ruined cottage it is genuinely frightening because the plot hangs together, thanks to the script, the actors and the director.

A Quiet Place is low budget without District 9's energy or imagination. Even Godzilla had a credible backstory.