Direction: Michael Sarnoski
Country: USA
A Quiet Place: Day One, the third installment in the A Quiet Place film series, is a patchy and uninspired apocalyptic horror film that functions as both a prequel and a spin-off. Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (Pig, 2021), the film fails to surpass the intrigue of the two previous films directed by John Krasinski.
This early chapter follows the journey of two survivors in a silenced New York: Samira (Lupita Nyong'o), a courageous, terminally ill woman craving pizza, and Eric (Joseph Quinn), a terrified British law student who never takes off his tie. Amidst the chaos, the real hero turns out to be Samira’s intelligent and surprisingly quiet cat.
Overall, the film offers too little and nothing new, with Sarnoski overly confident that style can substitute for substance. For the most part, the film is just a tired tread through the usual elements. It is well-produced, acceptably performed, and features decent special effects packing in some impressive dystopian imagery. However, we’ve seen it all before. There’s no reason to stay invested in something so uninventive. A Quiet Place: Day One is nothing but a dull apocalyptic routine that doesn’t pay off.
