I would love to able to go back in time on the internet to get the real-time feedback for A Quiet Place. The premise was so fun. I am an absolute sucker for any kind of twist on an apocalyptic scenario. I love zombie and virus movies but for me, monster is the most entertaining way to go — after living through COVID, I’m so good on virus. John Krasinski gave me lethal BUT BLIND space monster takes over the world and I could have kissed him on the mouth for it.
It fed on my very real fear of pregnancy in an end-of-the-world scenario without being annoying (don’t think Lori Grimes, who I wanted to fist fight in the street). It created a bubble of dread and anxiety that I rarely feel when watching a slasher or anything with a supernatural element. Because my Millennial brain decided that after the bath salt guy, nothing is real and humans are squishy and expendable so realistically our mass demise will probably happen in the most unsuspecting way.
I’ll save the yap sesh because to be ffr, this is the third movie in the franchise and I don’t think I would have been as excited for it if they hadn’t cast Lupita Nyong’o as the main. This woman is so otherworldy I will literally watch anything that she plays a major role in. And maybe the Wolff brothers have me in a mild chokehold (Alex for Hereditary and Nat for Mortal)? I don’t remember seeing Alex in any of the trailers, but I did see him doing press with Lupita and Joseph Quinn. I loved Eddie Munson in Stranger Things just like everybody else, but maybe I’m the only one who finds him kind of “meh” outside of that.
One thing this film really has going for it is that it’s a prequel. At this point we are very familiar with the big bads and respectfully, the family dynamic has been done to death so this was the best direction for a continuation. Lupita plays Sam, an end-stage cancer patient staying at Little Firs Hospice Center where Alex’s character Reuben is a friendly nurse. I’m not sure what I was expecting going into the movie, but this characterization caught me off guard but it makes the survival stakes so incredibly interesting.
Sam has an emotional support cat called Frodo who is quite literally the goodest boy and the star of the show. The residents of Little Firs are on a field trip to a marionette show when these monstrous aliens start falling to earth like heinous little asteroids and chaos erupts. There is a lot less action in this film than the previous two, although I don’t think that was intentional, but I still found myself having a good time and I cared for all the characters. They were very dynamic, and the relationship development was actually so good. Sidebar: Djimon Honsou DOES NOT AGE! He looks the same as he did in Constantine and that movie is like 20 years old.
Overall, I don’t regret seeing it in the theater but I do have a very major bone to pick with John Krasinski over it. I still don’t know anything about the origin of these things, and that irritates my spirit. To go three movies deep without going into some detail about where the monsters came from makes me feel like it’s just a smart money grab and there’s no real heart behind it – but I’m gonna choose not to believe that.
Stef Nuñez (she/they) is the Editor-In-Chief of Sage Cigarettes Magazine as well as unhinged co-host of A Ghost in the Magazine & The Annegirls Podcast. M-F 9-5 she works in the South Florida high fashion scene, but at night and on the weekends she is a feral horror mami who frequents film and music festivals. OH, and she’s a poet.
