A Quiet Place is John Krasinski's (AKA Jim from The Office) first film in the director's chair and he's delivered the kind of raw genre thrills that keeps your stomach in knots and your fingernails shredding the armrests.
Stripped down to its barest elements and just barely scraping by the 90-minute mark, it's devilish in its simplicity. Set in a very recently post-apocalyptic American town, a family eke out a meagre existence in near-complete silence in order to avoid being tracked by blind, razor-toothed monsters that can track even the smallest of sounds.
That means that, yes, A Quiet Place is on the surface a "quiet" film, but within that silence is tightly coiled tension. The ruthlessly effective sound design proceeds with great focus paid to every tiny change in the soundscape, and features only two or three scenes of dialogue throughout, the family mainly communicate using sign language,.
Krasinski, who also appears in the film as the put-upon father of the family, displays great promise as a director, though the material occasionally cries out for a more experienced, subtle hand than what is provided here.
His real-life spouse Emily Blunt appears here as the matriarch of the family, and their real-life chemistry is used to great effect to capture two struggling parents trying to protect their children from unspeakable horror.
Blunt is the kind of performer that can elevate even the most outlandish or potentially silly material. She commands the screen here, as the narrative piles on more and more terrifying developments that threaten the safety of the family unit.
As a film, A Quiet Place is rife with gaping plot holes and logic gaps, the kind that would draw you out of the experience as you were watching were it not so fleet-of-foot and breathlessly scary.
Make no mistake, this film is nerve-shreddingly intense. It's the kind of film that reminds you of the undeniable power of silence in cinema, as life-or-death scenes built around not making a sound play out with fiendish menace. Logic, in the end, doesn't really matter.
Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski
Director: John Krasinski
Running time: 90 minutes
Rating: M (Violence & horror scenes)
Verdict: A rollercoaster ride of gnawing tension and painfully effective jump scares.