NARRATOR: “Welcome back to Reign of Terror 2019! 31 straight days of horror movie reviews and interviews. Today’s episode will be a classic horror movie review from our... let’s call him a hero, Joseph for last year’s ‘A Quiet Place’, the breakout horror thriller from John Krasinski, Bryan Woods, and Scott Beck. Let’s hope he can be quiet today.”
NARRATOR: “Before the review, however, we’ll be running a promo for Sponsor Sundays. If you like what you’re hearing, and want to support future projects, head over to patreon.com/onemoviepunch to support the podcast. All sponsors get to force Joseph to review a movie of their choice, with just a few exceptions. You’ll also find exclusive content, including part one of an interview with Kerry G. Fleming, about 2017’s ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’, written with Victor Millerof the ‘Friday the 13th’ franchise, and directed by Tom Holland, director of the original ‘Child’s Play’.”
NARRATOR: “Wait, really? That sounds pretty great. Let me just make a note here: check out interview while publicly available for a limited time. At least until Joseph makes it back home. But will he? Let’s turn out attention back to the fate of our host, in Part Two of “COSMIC FARM HOUSE”.”
SCENE: Haunted house exterior.
JOSEPH: “Gotta be quiet...”
JOSEPH: “Gotta be more quiet than that...”
NARRATOR: “When we last left Joseph, he was just visited by the spectral form of Jason Stone of ‘Mars Attacks!’, but with the voice of the always enchanting and exuberant Amy Dobzynski, aka One Movie Spouse.”
AMY: “You’re so thoughtful!”
NARRATOR: “And, of course, Amy was repeating something she often said to Joseph when he got into these situations.”
AMY: “WILL YOU LISTEN?!”
JOSEPH: “Listen? Listen to what?”
AMY: “All right, you need to head to the silo in back, and climb to the top. Once you’re there, I can guide you the rest of the way out of here. But you have to be quiet.”
JOSEPH: “Oh yeah, that’s right. And I need to be quiet.”
NARRATOR: “Quietly, Joseph crept down a soft, dirt path, quietly towards the farm silo, blowing quietly in the wind. He looked around, quietly taking in what he could of his surroundings, in the quiet rays of the quietly waning moon. Each quiet step lead him quietly through the quiet farm towards the silo quietly...”
JOSEPH: “Oh, for God’s sake, GET A THESAURUS!”
JOSEPH: “I don’t like the sound of that.”
NARRATOR: “Suddenly, Joseph heard something moving towards him, and he turned to run rather loudly towards the silo. Had he stayed quiet, of course, he could have avoided all this.”
JOSEPH: “Oh, shut up!”
NARRATOR: “But alas, he wasn’t quiet. The rustling increased, and from multiple directions, but Joseph ran with all his might into the silo...”
JOSEPH: “What the...?”
NARRATOR: “...which was housing a modestly sized rocket. Crossing the perimeter triggered an alarm of sorts, which immediately began raising metal doors around the silo, blocking out whatever was making the noise.”
JOSEPH: “You know, that sounded an awful lot like...”
NARRATOR: “I said WHATEVER was making the noise. What Joseph should have been paying attention to, was a person in a lab coat waving him over to the rocket entrance, where he would be safe from the blast of the rocket launching in mere seconds.”
JOSEPH: “I should probably run over there.”
NARRATOR: “He did run over there. And it was definitely not quiet, but it did the trick. The lab coat couldn’t hear his questions, over the deafening roar of activating machinery. He was simply guided into the rocket, where klaxons warning of imminent launch replaced the cacophony of bangs and gears outside. And when he was shoved into what seemed to be a sleeping capsule, he had mere seconds to process everything before the seductive beauty of hypersleep.”
NARRATOR: “Of course, who these people were, or why he had to be quiet, Joseph still didn’t know. Tune in tomorrow to find out, when we’ll be joined by Daniel Shaw of The History of Violence podcast for a review of the 1979 classic, ‘Alien’. Join us for part three of “COSMIC FARM HOUSE”!”
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<< SPONSOR SUNDAYS PROMO >>
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Today’s movie is “A Quiet Place” (2018), the critically acclaimed horror film directed by John Krasinski and written in collaboration with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck. The film follows the Abbott family, including Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Lee (John Krasinski), Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe), and Beau (Cade Woodward), who are surviving a world where predatory creatures with supernatural hearing hunt any life they can hear, including humans.
Spoilers ahead.
I’m confident in saying that this is the best new film I’ve seen this year. It will be the fourth 10/10 review I’ve given, next to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (Episode #014), Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” (Episode #037), and the groundbreaking “Captain America: Civil War” (Episode #085). And for me, a film earns that ranking when they do the best version of that particular film, regardless of genre or actors or box office numbers or even other critical scores. In fact, we’ve finally entered a world where entire genres aren’t being snubbed by critics and audiences alike. People are finally taking fantasy and science fiction and horror films seriously again, and we all get to reap the benefits.
John Krasinski has created a masterpiece hidden in a concept film, and one that requires the right kind of audience willing to respect the absolute need for silence to watch this film. The sound editing is superb, amplifying the background noises, making sharp sounds really stand out, and making the usual noise in our life seem so loud. The near lack of spoken dialogue requires you to focus on the subtitles and if you listen close enough, you can hear their breathy whispers. Each part of this film draws you further and further in, so much so that I understand the anger of folks who tried to see the film with a bad audience.
The film itself is well-paced, broken up into three major events in their family’s struggle to survive after the creatures arrive. The first event sets the tone for their film, where an innocent mistake leads to the death of their youngest, creating literal and figurative unspoken tension within the family. The second event involves a scare about a year later, when the family is getting ready for the coming of another child and nearly give their position away to the creatures within the vicinity. And then the last act, when the family is separated and Evelyn goes into labor after injuring herself, stalked by the local predator, building steam until some major sacrifices need to be made. Everyone is great, but Emily Blunt is spectacular and believable, and I want a GIF of her cocking the shotgun as soon as possible.
“A Quiet Place” (2018) is an exquisitely crafted concept film that treats the genre and the audience with respect. The ending quite literally left me speechless, full of complex emotions and a huge sense of admiration for Krasinski. I cannot recommend this film enough, and I encourage everyone to see it before it leaves the theaters. Just be quiet, sit back and watch real movie magic happen.
