the quiet hour movie review

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The Quiet Hour Reviews

the extraterrestrials themselves are never seen, leaving Joalland to focus instead on the humans below, caught in their own uncivil clash of hope and despair, enlightenment and bestiality.

Full Review | Jun 3, 2015

The Quiet Hour

The quiet hour movie review.

Written by Ali Chappell

Released by Monarch Home Entertainment

Dakota Blue Richards as Sarah Karl Davies as Jude Jack McMullen as Tom Brigitte Millar as Kathryn

The Quiet Hour is Stephanie Joalland's latest post-apocalyptic film set after an alien invasion. A brother, Tom (Jack McMullen), and a sister, Sarah (Dakota Blue Richards), are holding up in their parent's farmhouse. Tom, as we quickly find out, is blind. Sarah opens the movie by burying a body, which we soon learn is their father and Tom has no idea. The reason this movie is called The Quiet Hour is that because there are only a few hours out of each day where they can go outside without being killed by the aliens. Making everything just that much more isolated.

While Sarah goes out to find food, a soldier, Jude (Karl Davies), breaks into their home and steals what little they have to eat. Luckily Sarah comes back in time to stop him. However, they are not alone. A convoy of five people set up shop in front of the farmhouse and demand they release the soldier and they will leave. A very familiar Purge feel to the whole thing. The soldier reveals he is a journalist and not a soldier and that those people killed his wife and child.

One of the men in the car breaks in and tries to rape Sarah, but Jude takes him down. The woman, Kathryn (Brigitte Millar), in the car makes contact saying if they just give them her husbands body they will leave. They do give them the body, but as it turns out, they don't leave. Instead, they have this less-than-intense showdown in the barn. Where in the end the only ones left are Sarah and Tom and we have come full circle. Snooze.

I will give this movie credit for a very well-shot attempted-rape scene. There is no nudity, just sheer terror. The fact that Tom and Jude are downstairs within shouting distance makes the scene that much more uncomfortable. Thankfully, Jude strangles him before the actual rape can happen. This just proves that you can shoot a rape scene without it being graphic and exposing. It can be subtle and be just as, if not more, scary. I commend them for this.

The Quiet Hour is a slow burn with no real ending. It just stops. It could've gone in so many directions that would've made this plot more enticing. Maybe all die but Tom and he must live his life alone and blind. Maybe the farmhouse burns down and they have to start over. ANYTHING! Even the route they do take is somewhat stagnant when it could've been much more. One thing I really do enjoy about this film is that they never show the aliens. Just their ships. This makes the film rely entirely on the cast and their stories. Not seeing the aliens, you almost forget they are there until they are talked about it or until they send down a beam of light that kills someone.

By the time, you get to the end, you are hoping for some big reveal, some big changing moment but nope. It just ends. They go back to the house and pretend like nothing happened. Just another day in the neighbourhood.

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The quiet hour 's greatest threat comes from within: a movie review.

Sarah and Jude try to stay off the menu.

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The Quiet Hour – Movie Review

by A. Renee Hunt | Mar 29, 2017 | Movie Reviews , Reviews | 0 comments

The Quiet Hour Director: Stéphanie Joalland Screenplay: Stéphanie Joalland Music composed by: Carlos José Alvarez Producer: Sean McConville Initial release: July 12, 2014 Reviewed by A. Renee Hunt

Siblings Sarah and Tom are surviving in an alien-invaded world on their family farm, but they’re not alone for long. A stranger soon invades their home, seeking shelter. It’s what follows him that brings the trouble.

The Quiet Hour is not a science fiction movie that focuses on the aliens. In fact, they’re in the backdrop. The story’s emphasis is on the deterioration of humanity. How quickly people turn on one another when they cannot attack the ones who’ve brought them down. Due to this attention, I found appreciation for the movie.

The director had a vision of just a few days in this new existence. Offering a story of family love and a strong will to survive, the movie came through on its promise: an offer of hope. There are three pieces of the movie that together in an extraordinary, apocalyptic war, no one really wins. Such is a dystopian world.

The pace is slow and the acting is not all that great, but the story has potential. Had there been more on the invasion, and less focus on rape and making out with a teenager, the movie could have held some possibility. Also, there was no cameo for the aliens. You saw them suspended in air, and a few smaller ships scouting, but no actual visual. That’s the disappointing part. If there’s an alien invasion, you have to have aliens. There was one moment, near the end, where you got to see one of the scout ships much closer; there’s that one tidbit.

The Quiet Hour , released July of 2014, could have been much more, but I’ve seen worse.

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The quiet hour.

Directed by Stéphanie Joalland

Time is running out

In a remote part of rural, post-apocalyptic England, now occupied by unseen alien invaders, a feisty teenage girl sets out on a desperate attempt to fight back a group of bandits and defend her parents' farm, their remaining livestock, and the solar panels that keep them safe from extraterrestrials. If she doesn't succeed, she will lose her only source of food and shelter; if she resists, she and her helpless blind sibling will be killed.

Dakota Blue Richards Karl Davies Jack McMullen Brigitte Millar Zeb Moore Liam O'Brien James Browne

Director Director

Stéphanie Joalland

Producer Producer

Sean McConville

Writer Writer

Casting casting.

David Fielding Susan Head

Editor Editor

Michael Freedman

Cinematography Cinematography

David Knight

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Thomas L. Carmody

Lighting Lighting

Rupert MacCarthy-Morrogh

Production Design Production Design

Gerard Wallace

Art Direction Art Direction

Zachary Denman

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Leona Matuszczak

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Christian Darkin

Composer Composer

Carlos José Alvarez

Sound Sound

Angel Perez Grandi Mustafa Bal Javier Laguna Michael Sinden

Costume Design Costume Design

Julie Jones

Makeup Makeup

Simone Wightman

Frenzy Films

Ireland UK USA

Releases by Date

12 jul 2014, 07 oct 2014, 24 jun 2016, 21 mar 2017, 03 sep 2021, 07 sep 2015, releases by country.

• Digital 16 Netflix
• Theatrical 12
• Premiere 15 Galway Film Fleadh
• Premiere 15 Raindance Film Festival
• Physical 15 DVD

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Popular reviews

Review by Deckk ★★

100-word review: The Quiet Hour is an apt title, because this film is indeed not much longer than an hour, and very quiet — or rather, boring. The sci-fi element (a post-alien-related-apocalyptic setting) is barely there, never explained, never more than a motivation for people to abandon societal values, and simply uninteresting. The film is more of a home invasion thriller than a sci-fi, but it's not as if those genre aspects are given the necessary attention; by not offering a fresh take or unique twist, any popular home invasion thriller with a budget already did it better.

Review by MichaelEternity ½

Significantly less science fiction than "It Comes at Night" was horror, while telling an identical story about a small family hiding in seclusion from a planetary threat (then a viral outbreak, here an alien invasion), who are challenged by the arrival of some mysterious human strangers onto their property. That is the whole movie. A couple people in a stand-off against a couple other people at a remote rural spot on a two-figure production budget. Perhaps also somewhat reminiscent of "The Purge", which similarly promised a tantalizing bigger picture scenario but then made the questionable change to focus on a family protecting an interloper inside their home from vicious human attackers.

The alien aspect of "The Quiet Hour" occupies about…

Review by Matt ★★½

Ultra cheap and ultra slow, but if you've got the patience for such things then this is an admirably well made micro budget indie sci fi that's worth a watch. The acting's pretty great too, with a standout turn from the wonderfully named and genetically blessed Dakota Blue Richards - last seen by most as the wee girl in those Golden Compass films many moons ago.

Just, you know, don't flick it on expecting Star Wars.

Review by Jerome1994 ★★★

Holy crap something decent, it had a rough start but it ended pretty well, the filming definitely makes this movie without it's nothing. But this isn't something I would watch immediately...

Review by Fish ★½

Watched on; DVD.

Watching dystopic Sci-Fi's have become common watching during this last year, so Andrea and I have been gobbling up as many as possible. We watched the critically acclaimed 'The Quiet Place', quite early into isolation, with mixed response. 'The Quiet Hour', had the same premise, but a completely different plot.

An alien invasion/occupation has happened world wide, with people surviving day to day. During the day, there is a brief time-slot in which the occupying extra-terrestrials aren't patrolling. This is apparently when everybody moves about, yet, nobody seems to use this time during the actual film. Instead of an alien threat, the writers have angled their thriller at the remaining populace. The obvious antagonists are the remaining…

Review by The ^^itch ★

Not much going on here in this apocalyptic thriller set in England following the invasion of an alien race sent to mine the Earth of its resources. First off, we are told that they drill constantly, with only a 2 hour break from the noise each day. So why isn't the movie called the Quiet Hours, plural? Second, you never actually hear ANY noise so why name the movie after this random fact. Also, it's not made clear when it's safe to go out, and when it isn't.

The sci-fi element doesn't really seem to serve any purpose to this story. We have our heros, our mysterious stranger, and eventually a band of bad guys. The rest is just a struggle for survival, not against the aliens, but against other humans. I understand it's low budget film making, but sadly the low budget affected the story, and that just shouldn't happen.

Review by Comrie ★★

A bit like an extraterrestrial version of The Survivalist, I guess. Difficult to empathize with any of the characters when their viewpoints/moral code seemed to flip on a whim.

Review by theNomad ★★★

"I was hoping to find people, find life" - Jude (Karl Davis)

Sombre, pedestrian paced dystopian drama from the emerald isle. Having already survived an apocalyptic event caused by alien visitors, three youths Sarah, her blind friend Tom and newcomer to the fold Jude are forced to hide out in a rural farm, because the ripples of the cataclysm have turned many of the surviving humans into cannibalistic scavengers.

First time feature from French born writer/director Stephanie Joalland that shares the same young survivalist elements as Kevin Macdonalds 'How I Live Now'. Joallands direction is fine, but story wise it needed more urgency. Plus I would have liked far more insight into the ET visitors, outside of seeing the ships…

Review by Brandon Williams ★★

Not a MST3k level indie effort, but the story was too simplistic. Character building wasn't strong enough. The way the standoff played out didn't make sense. Neither did the main action scene in the barn, amateurishly scripted and directed. They knew the outcome wanted from the scene, but not how to naturally get there.

I wouldn't recommend this, there are much better indie SF efforts out there to appreciate. But for SF fans who have seen most everything else, it's watchable.

Review by Hershal ★★★

This is a surprisingly decent bit of low budget sci-fi. Though I guess it’s only sci-fi in overall theme. It’s much more of a character piece and a fairly good one. Maybe I’m desperate for entertainment. Maybe it’s the stroke. I liked it!

Review by becsbowe ★★

Aliens have landed in rural Britain. This film is slow, badly shot and the only emotion is the creepy feeling of incest between the brother and the sister. Not great. At least it’s quite short.

Review by Pete Baran ★★½

A very small scale home defence in an alien apocalypse story which never really gets over its budgetary limitations. I don't mind the aliens being a distant threat but when they can't even really afford a decent fight scene between the humans the jig is up.

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The Quiet Hour

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Dakota Blue Richards (Sarah) Karl Davies (Jude) Jack McMullen (Tom Connelly) Brigitte Millar (Kathryn) James Browne (Youngster) Liam O'Brien (Blondie) Zeb Moore (Brian) Paul Flanagan (Toothpick Man)

Stéphanie Joalland

In the aftermath of an alien invasion, a feisty teenage girl sets out to protect her farm from human scavengers who will stop at nothing in order to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.

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The Quiet Hour

• In the aftermath of an alien invasion, a feisty teenage girl sets out to protect her farm from human scavengers who will stop at nothing in order to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
• Humans are few and far between since Earth was invaded by unseen extraterrestrial machines that harvest the planet's natural resources and relentlessly kill its inhabitants. In a remote part of the countryside, where starved humans have become as dangerous as the alien machines hovering in the sky, a feisty 19 year old girl, Sarah Connolly, sets out on a desperate attempt to fight back a group of bandits and defend her parents' farm, their remaining livestock, and the solar panels that keep them safe from extraterrestrials. If she doesn't succeed, she will lose her only source of food and shelter; but if she resists, she and her helpless blind sibling will be killed. And if the mysterious intruder dressed like a soldier who claims he can help them turns out to be a liar, then the enemy may already be in the house. — Frenzy Films
• In a remote part of rural, post-apocalyptic England, now occupied by unseen alien invaders, a feisty teenage girl sets out on a desperate attempt to fight back a group of bandits and defend her parents' farm, their remaining livestock, and the solar panels that keep them safe from extraterrestrials. If she doesn't succeed, she will lose her only source of food and shelter; if she resists, she and her helpless blind sibling will be killed. — Frenzy Films

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Review: ‘The Quiet Hour’ is a Taut Sci-Fi Thriller

Science fiction can be as big and expansive as the newest Guardians of the Galaxy  movie or as simple as an episode of the original  Twilight Zone . They are contemplative what-ifs set within optimistic futures or bleak destinies approaching our planet Earth. Therefore, one, at least I think so, should appreciate the tenacity and creativity that goes into making a lo-fi science fiction film. In this case, The Quiet Hour , a sci-fi thriller by Stephanie Joalland is nothing short of impressive and set in the aftermath of an alien invasion. In the film, we are thrown into a world where the marquee invasion is nothing but a horrendous reminder of far superior beings; devastation that has already rolled through Earth. What is left is a sparse humanity struggling to survive while the visitors hover overhead weeding out what life remains.

The film follows 19-year old Sarah Connolly ( Dakota Blue Richards ) and her blind brother Tom ( Jack McMullen ). They are cooped up in a house in the countryside and supplies and food are low and hope is even lower. When Sarah returns to her home she finds that Tom has caught an unwanted intruder, donning military camouflage, by the name of Jude ( Karl Davies ). Jude claims he’s not associated with the military; Sarah is trusting, much more than her brother who is reluctant to keep Jude around even if all he’s looking for is food and shelter.

Dakota Blue Richards as ‘Sarah’

It doesn’t take too long before they find out why Jude is in their home– just outside, a group of renegades demand that the Connolly’s relinquish Jude to them. This puts the siblings in a dangerous and volatile situation and one that they have hitherto avoided. Now the trio must face bloodthirsty– and armed– men and women that lurk on their property on top of the alien threat that still harvests the planet.

The Quiet Hour is a taut sci-fi thriller that is simple in its premise but profound in its execution. The film’s cinematography is gorgeously bleak and the direction by Joalland meticulous and sparse. The performances are rather good especially from the enigmatic Jude, played by Davies , and Richards’  Sarah who carries the film’s austere post-apocalyptic landscape through her performance.

You can find The Quiet Hour on DVD and video on demand through Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube . Amazon Prime  members can now stream the film for free through their Prime membership.

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Film Review: THE QUIET HOUR (2014)

THE QUIET HOUR *** U.K./Ireland 2014 Dir: Stephanie Joalland 82 mins

Aliens have invaded Earth and for two one hour slots a day everything is safe. Sarah (Dakota Blue Richards) and blind brother Tom (Jack McMullen) are trying to peacefully live out what bit of humanity is available to them on their farm. That is until Jude (Karl Davies) comes to their home seeking shelter but he also brings trouble with him. He has killed someone in a different group and now they are coming after him for revenge. Not only do they want him but they are determined to take over the farm and make it their own place of safety in this post-apocalyptic world. It is up to the three of them to protect what is theirs from the enemy on Earth and from space. Big on characterisations and little on alien activity, this is well crafted and is more about how people would survive in any given situation. If it wasn’t for the occasional look at the sky where we see alien ships hovering about you would forget there was even an alien invasion going on. Why are the aliens here? Apparently they are mining for minerals from the Earth, what minerals we have no idea. The aliens also leave the planet as soon as they have arrived with no explanation. Stephanie Joalland’s feature film directorial debut doesn’t give us anything we haven’t seen before, but what it does show is that the ability to create a film in what is basically one location can be done well.

Review by Peter ‘ Witchfinder ‘ Hopkins

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The Quiet Hour

Dakota Blue Richards plays Sarah, a young girl trying to survive in the aftermath of an alien invasion with her blind brother Tom (Jack McMullen). Into their lives comes Jude (Karl Davies) a man looking for sanctuary being chased by a group of pursuers who are after revenge and more.

This is the debut feature from Stephanie Joalland, with a background in screen writing this French director made this low budget UK sci-fi in just 3 weeks.

The alien spaceships look like giant malevolent wasp nests hanging in the sky. With very little exposition we are on familiar ground, this is definitely a sci-fi film. It has a strangely nostalgic feel at turns making me think of Day of the Triffids (blind brother), Mad Max (baddies get up) and The Road (bleak fighting for survival); although its most striking parallel is most definitely Straw Dogs .

There is a very English bleakness about the film’s atmosphere and the leads are quiet and non hysterical, stoical; just how you might expect most of the UK to act were we to get invaded by aliens. No one really knows what the aliens want but the survivors are just as much threatened by other humans as by the drone patrols that go out hunting them.

There is a tense, creeping horror when the residents of the house become under siege from the outsiders seeking revenge and resources; they seem woefully underprepared in the circumstances to really fend off attackers even with their extra man. They appear painfully naïve which only adds to your sense of dread about what might befall them.

It’s not quite the UK’s version of District 9 but this quiet film is a real treat, its references make you feel like you’ve seen it before but you haven’t; we need more sci-fi in the UK on the big screen and this is a good place to start. More of this please Stephanie.

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Friday 12 June 2015

The quiet hour - review by greg klymkiw - niff 2015 - low-key post-apocalypse.

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In a remote part of rural, post-apocalyptic England, now occupied by unseen alien invaders, a feisty teenage girl sets out on a desperate attempt to fight back a group of bandits and defend her parents' farm, their remaining livestock, and the solar panels that keep them safe from extraterrestrials. If she doesn't succeed, she will lose her only source of food and shelter; if she resists, she and her helpless blind sibling will be killed.

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Where does The Quiet Hour rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

The Quiet Hour is 1089 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 405 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil but less popular than Seven Psychopaths.

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THE QUIET HOUR

by  Stephanie Joalland

Sarah is a young girl trying to simply survive in the aftermath of the alien invasion with her blind younger brother Tom. Into their lives comes Jude, a man who has lost his family and is desperate for sanctuary from human pursuers who prove far more dangerous than the alien threat hanging – quite literally – above their heads. Determined to protect the family farm from the threat outside, Sarah finds herself at war with her brother as she’s forced to take the risk of trusting Jude, despite Tom’s fears he may not be as innocent as he’s claiming to be

more about: The Quiet Hour

12 features vie for the Sofia Award

The 19th Sofia IFF has opened with Georgi Balabanov’s The Petrov File    

06/03/2015 | Festivals | Bulgaria

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A Quiet Place: Day One Review

Pretty much the best case scenario for a prequel..

A Quiet Place: Day One opens in theaters Friday, June 28.

It’s impressive just how great A Quiet Place: Day One is. Not that the first two Quiet Place movies weren’t good – they’re both strong films in their own right. But this spinoff/prequel to those earlier films introduces new characters in a new setting that successfully elevates both the tension and the emotional impact of John Krasinski’s nearly dialogue-free horror films. The result is the series’ best movie to date.

As the title implies, Day One brings us back to the very beginning, to the day sightless alien creatures with extremely sharp hearing first crash down to Earth. Yes, we saw some of this invasion play out in A Quiet Place Part II’s harrowing prologue, but the big difference here is a change of scenery: Where that sequence was set in a small town in Upstate New York, Day One takes place right in the middle of Manhattan. That change gives the action a different feel, which only expands as the movie charts the first steps toward the post-apocalyptic world established in the first two films.

A Quiet Place: Day One Gallery

Our main character this time out is Samira (Lupita Nyong'o), who’s in town on a day trip during a time of personal crisis. As fate would have it, she won’t be catching a bus home that afternoon, due to the nightmarish creatures who show up and mercilessly wipe out any humans they hear in their vicinity. Nyong'o is a proven talent – she has an Oscar for a reason. And yet, perhaps because she’s only made a handful of movies since her breakout performance in 12 Years a Slave , every new role she plays feels like a reminder of what a terrific actor she is and how effortlessly she holds the screen. The opening scenes of A Quiet Place: Day One establish what Samira’s life is like and the impulsive hostility she’s sometimes capable of – an efficient explanation of what causes her behavior. But it’s Nyong'o’s performance that does the heavy lifting of quickly connecting us to her, so that we’re invested even before the world starts ending.

As the survivors of the aliens’ initial attack process what happened and how quiet they need to be to avoid detection, Samira finds a new focus. She knows exactly where in the city she wants to travel. Her reasoning becomes clear as time goes on, and by that point, writer-director Michael Sarnoski (taking over for Krasinski, who returns as executive producer and receives a “story by” credit) has fully immersed us in this story, grounding an outrageous premise in a relatable emotional core.

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Sarnoski pulled off a similar trick in his first feature, 2021’s Pig , turning the story of Nicolas Cage tracking down his stolen pet foraging pig into something so empathetic and soulful. The other Quiet Place movies have powerful, compassionate moments of their own, but Day One manages to dig deeper. In a film that only sparingly uses dialogue, Sarnoski and his talented cast manage to convey a lot through brief yet meaningful glances and small observations. The prequel underlines the awful, nearly impossible plight of its protagonists. Could you truly stay silent while moving fast? Or if you were in terrible pain? Or if you were just plain terrified? There are several wrenching moments throughout that demonstrate just what an ordeal this would be, and why so many wouldn’t survive it.

This is especially true once Samira meets British law student Eric (Joseph Quinn). Barely holding it together, Eric latches on to Samira. He sheepishly follows her, whether she likes it or not, and their dynamic adds more heart to Day One. We see how Eric and Samira rapidly forge a real connection, even though they can’t really speak to one another. Quinn is wonderful at displaying Eric’s sweetness and vulnerability through his actions, rather than any big monologue, and he proves to be the perfect scene partner for Nyong'o.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the emotional components of A Quiet Place: Day One, so I should also note that this movie is truly scary and often intense as hell. (It gets an extra jolt in IMAX, where the sound design genuinely made me feel like I was in the middle of a city under siege.) There are terrific scenes throughout that ratchet up the tension, such as when our heroes must travel through a flooded subway tunnel. When the aliens attack, it’s brutal and memorable – this is one of the harder-edged PG-13 films in recent memory. Sarnoski gets a lot of visual mileage out of the creatures swarming the streets of New York and scurrying across skyscrapers, which is especially impressive considering how many other monster movies have used the city as their backdrop. There’s a genuine dread that sells this as a believable look at how people would react to a situation so beyond comprehension and so out of their control.

Day One is mainly a two-hander between Nyong'o and Quinn, though Alex Wolff (who worked with Sarnoski on Pig) does good work in a smaller role. Djimon Hounsou also pops up to reprise his role as Henri from A Quiet Place Part II – the only real attempt to establish more connective tissue to the larger Quiet Place franchise. It’s fan service, but to the film’s credit, there isn’t any eye-rolling foreshadowing of what Henri’s future holds. (You can absolutely enjoy Day One without any prior knowledge of A Quiet Place.)

There’s one other significant character: Frodo, Samira’s therapy cat. As a cat lover, I was nervous for Frodo from the get-go – after all, this is a film series that kicks off with the death of a young boy. I won’t say whether Frodo makes it out alive or not, but I will say that the two cats playing him, Nico and Schnitzel, give excellent performances. Granted, the extent to which Frodo never meows or cries out – no matter what is occurring around him – requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief. Look, I have cats, and they truly won’t shut up when they’re hungry. But Frodo is just built different, okay?

A Quiet Place: Day One shows that the horror franchise can thrive without its core characters and can go even further in terms of how impactful its stories can be. Day One combines expertly done moments of terror and tension combined with a story about two people it’s easy to care for, as we watch them forge a relatable human connection while trying to evade freaky alien monsters with really strong hearing. It’s both the best A Quiet Place movie to date and one of the best movies I’ve seen in 2024.

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Review: ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ is the rare prequel that outclasses the original for mood

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To watch “A Quiet Place: Day One” is to recalibrate your senses — not to the alien horror movie you know is in store but rather, to the intimate human drama it hangs onto, long after a lesser film would have given up. Among its lovely images, there’s the distant New York skyline seen beyond a Queens cemetery, a sight familiar to anyone who’s ever driven into town. There are the resigned glances of terminal patients in hospice. Mostly, we take in the exquisite face of Lupita Nyong’o as Sam, a young person in the prime of life stricken with cancer, who carries the unfairness of her situation just below the surface.

Sirens and fighter-jet shrieks ease their way into the sound mix, as they must in any prequel to 2018’s civilization-ending “A Quiet Place” and 2020’s more-of-the-same “A Quiet Place Part II.” But even as smoke and white ash fill the air (best to leave those Sept. 11 memories at home) and pissed-off creatures rampage like cattle down the city’s glass and steel canyons, there’s an unusual commitment to the darker fringes of postapocalyptic moviemaking. It’s less “Furiosa” and more “The Road.”

Sam is already prepared to die, lending the film an impressively bleak tone and sparing us the rote machinations of hardy-band-of-survivors plotting. All she wants to do is walk — very quietly — approximately 120 blocks north from Chinatown to Harlem, where she can scarf the last slices of pizza from Patsy’s before such delicacies become ancient history.

It’s a refreshing, near-radical concept to build a studio film around, and as Sam sets off, a tote bag on her arm and her black-and-white support cat Frodo beside her, you may be reminded of that other woman-and-feline survival story, “Alien,” stripped to the bone. (One also wonders, glumly, how NYC’s thousands of dogs fared with these tetchy sound-averse invaders.)

The person pulling all this off is director-screenwriter Michael Sarnoski, last seen evincing a recognizably human performance from Nicolas Cage as a crumpled, broken chef in “Pig,” which was also about facing a kind of personal catastrophe. (He’s now made two of the most downbeat foodie films in a row.) Sarnoski, who wrote the story with original creator John Krasinski, does fine enough by the James Cameron-like action sequences that probably were mandated by the powers that be: chase sequences in flooded subway tunnels — yuck — and abandoned landmarks.

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But he’s stronger on personal moments, such as the finest take of Djimon Hounsou ’s career, consumed in spiraling guilt and choking back a scream after accidentally killing someone for panicking too loud. There’s also a business-suited Brit (Joseph Quinn, last seen shredding to Metallica in “Stranger Things”) who only wants to join Sam on her pizza quest. With a minimum of words, we somehow understand that he’s devoted way too much of his time on the planet to not connecting with other human beings, and he may only get this one day to make up for it.

You can take or leave a subplot about Sam’s writing career and thwarted dreams. For this viewer, there’s more poetry in her stopping at an abandoned bookstore, as we all would do, picking up a used paperback (fittingly, Octavia E. Butler ’s 1987 sci-fi novel “Dawn,” which you sense she has read) and sniffing the pages: a history captured in a scent. She too is savoring humanity’s last vestiges. This is a film that seems to know a lot about future psychology. May we never know such mournfulness outside of an ambitious summer blockbuster.

'A Quiet Place: Day One'

Rating: PG-13, for terror and violent content/bloody images Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes Playing: In wide release June 28.

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‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Review: Alien Invasion Prequel Arrives Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Instead of providing answers or much in the way of suspense, director Michael Sarnoski’s contribution stars Lupita Nyong'o as a terminally ill cat owner tiptoeing through a mostly off-screen apocalypse.

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As it happens, director John Krasinski’s excellent 2020 sequel flashed back to Day One, revealing the pandemonium the aliens’ arrival caused for unsuspecting humans, before jumping forward more than a year in the “Quiet Place” chronology. In theory, what “Day One” promises — but doesn’t actually deliver — is a more expansive look at the mayhem. Most of the action occurs off-screen, and no one (not even the authorities) so much as attempts to fight back.

What about cats? Is Frodo ever really at risk? For the curious, Sarnoski includes a tough-to-decipher scene where a trio of aliens feed on what looks like a feathered version of the ovomorphs from “Alien.” Perhaps this explains why the Death Angels are so aggro: They didn’t pack enough snacks for their intergalactic mission, and Earth doesn’t have what they need. But what do they want?

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, “Day One” is served up as a disaster movie, à la Roland Emmerich’s “Independence Day,” with money shots of the Brooklyn Bridge collapsing into the East River and deserted streets that suggest “I Am Legend” by way of 9/11. Where did everybody go? “Day One” makes it look like just a few hundred people call Manhattan home. Surely New York would be crawling with residents, pouring out of the skyscrapers and into the streets, or else retreating into their apartments. It’s Day One of the invasion, and the city is a ghost town.

It’s kind of a fluke that Samira agreed to come along for a field trip to a Manhattan marionette theater, led by a nurse (Alex Wolff) who should have worn quieter clothes. When the aliens land, they immediately start picking off the noisiest humans. Scream, and you’re toast. Call out for your missing partner or child, and a Death Angel is guaranteed to spring from off-screen and rip you in half. While the characters try their best to keep silent, the film’s sound designers do the opposite, using low tones to make the whole theater rumble (Imax and 4DX viewers can literally feel the attack unfolding off-screen).

In the two previous films, the thrill came from watching how characters reacted to these sinewy, double-jointed monsters, whose rattling, Venom-looking heads fold open in a series of flaps as they stop to listen. The terrifying creatures can’t see, but their sense of hearing is hyper-acute, which is why our world went quiet . For some reason, all that stuff it took humans 474 days to learn in the other movies is already known by the characters in this one (like using running water to confound the aliens).

As Samira hides out in the marionette theater with a crowd of strangers (including Djimon Hounsou, the film’s lone connection to the previous installment), military choppers fly overhead, broadcasting instructions: Keep silent. Stay off the bridges. Carefully make your way to the South Street Seaport, where ships are standing by to evacuate people. As an inexplicably small crowd of survivors move south, Samira and Frodo walk in the opposite direction. She wants that pizza.

Through it all, she remains more committed to protecting her cat — which is ironic, since the animal seems all but guaranteed to attract the wrong kind of attention. It is Frodo who finds Eric and leads him to Samira. Their instant bond feels contrived, though a more charitable viewer might be moved by this nothing-to-lose connection between two lonely souls — what writer-director Lorene Scafaria called “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.”

To his credit, Sarnoski orchestrates a few high-tension set-pieces. But there aren’t nearly enough of these for a movie set in the “Quiet Place” world, as Sarnoski (who put Nicolas Cage through all kinds of nonsensical behavior in “Pig”) winds up putting sentimentality ahead of suspense.

Just compare these movies to the century’s best zombie franchise: “A Quiet Place” ranks up there with “28 Days Later” in its immersive, world-turned-upside-down intrigue. “Part II” was bigger and scarier, à la “28 Weeks Later.” “Day One” ought to have been the mind-blowing origin story, and instead it’s a Hallmark movie, where everyone seems to have nine lives — not just that darn cat.

Reviewed at AMC The Grove, Los Angeles, June 26, 2024. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time:

• Production: A Paramount Pictures release and presentation, in association with Michael Bay, of a Platinum Dunes, Sunday Night production. Producers: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, John Krasinski. Executive producers: Allyson Seeger, Vicki Dee Rock.
• Crew: Director: Michael Sarnoski. Screenplay: Michael Sarnoski; story: John Krasinski, Michael Sarnoski, based on characters created by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck. Camera: Pat Scola. Editors: Andrew Mondshein, Gregory Plotkin. Music: Alexis Grapsas.
• With: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou.

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Sharply funny 'Janet Planet' perfectly captures the feel of a long, hot summer

Justin Chang

Mother and daughter Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) share a slow New England summer in Janet Planet. Courtesy of A24 hide caption

Amid the current crop of summer movies, I can’t think of one that captures the feeling of summer more evocatively than Janet Planet. Much of the story takes place in a rustic house in woodsy Western Massachusetts; by day, sunlight streams in through enormous windows, and at night, chirping crickets flood the soundtrack. The celebrated playwright Annie Baker, here writing and directing her first film, has uncanny powers of observation and a talent for evoking time and place. She also has two memorable lead characters and a sharply funny and moving story to tell.

It’s the summer of 1991. The story begins when 11-year-old Lacy, played by the terrific newcomer Zoe Ziegler, calls her mom from camp and demands to be taken home early; her exact words are “I’m gonna kill myself if you don’t come get me.”

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Lacy is a shy misfit with big owlish glasses and a flair for deadpan exaggeration. She and her single mom, Janet, who’s played by a subtly luminous Julianne Nicholson, are extremely close, as we can see when Janet duly comes to fetch Lacy and bring her home. Later at their house, Janet puts Lacy to bed and listens to her vent.

Baker isn’t one to hurry her characters along. Her plays — the best known of which is her Pulitzer-winning 2013 drama, The Flick — have been justly praised for bringing a new kind of naturalism to the stage, especially in the way the actors retain the stammers and silences of normal conversation. She brings that same sensibility to Janet Planet .

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Baker includes a few loving nods to her background in theater; at various points, Lacy plays with a small puppet theater, complete with handmade clay figurines, and in a later scene, she and Janet attend an outdoor performance featuring actors in elaborate costumes. But the movie never feels stagey. It was shot on 16-millimeter film by Maria von Hausswolff, who previously filmed the visually stunning Icelandic drama Godland , and her use of natural light and precise, fine-grained details feel transportingly cinematic.

The movie is divided into three loose chapters, each one focused on a friend or significant other of Janet’s who becomes a houseguest for a spell. First up is her boyfriend Wayne, played by a gruff Will Patton, who has a daughter around Lacy’s age but doesn’t take too kindly to Lacy herself. He’s soon out the door.

In the second chapter we meet Regina, played by a wonderful Sophie Okonedo, a free-spirited drifter who comes to stay with Janet and Lacy after leaving a local hippie commune — basically a cult, though everyone is careful not to use that word. Regina initially brings a breath of fresh air into the house, though she proves insensitive and tactless, especially around Janet, and soon overstays her welcome.

The third houseguest — Avi, played by Elias Koteas — is Regina’s ex-partner and the leader of that hippie commune. Avi is the most mysterious presence in the movie, and it’s through his short-lived relationship with Janet that we fully grasp how profoundly unhappy she is.

The title Janet Planet has many meanings — it’s the name of the acupuncture studio that Janet operates out of the house. It’s also a passing reference to the nickname that Van Morrison gave the songwriter Janet Rigsbee, who inspired a lot of his love songs during their five-year marriage. But the title is most meaningful as it frames our understanding of Janet, whose quiet magnetism really does seem to draw other people, especially men, into her orbit. As we see in Nicholson’s heartbreaking performance, it’s been as much a curse as it is a blessing.

One of the movie’s subtlest achievements is the way it clues us into Janet’s perspective, even as it keeps Janet herself at a bit of a distance. Much of the time we’re studying Janet through Lacy’s eyes, and what’s uncanny is the way Baker captures a sense of the girl’s growing disillusionment — that intensely specific moment when a child begins to see even a doting parent in a clear and not always flattering new light. By the end of Janet Planet , not much has happened, and yet something momentous seems to have taken place. You want Baker to return to these characters, to show us how Janet and Lacy continue to change and grow, together and apart, in the years — and the summers — to come.

Movie review: 'Quiet Place: Day One' familiar, still fun

LOS ANGELES, June 27 (UPI) -- With the third film, A Quiet Place: Day One , in theaters Friday, the franchise settles into a method for extending its gimmick indefinitely. This is still fun, though less significant than the first two entries.

Sam (Lupita Nyong'o) is living in hospice. Her nurse, Reuben (Alex Wolff), takes a group into New York on the day that aliens attracted to sound arrive. Advertisement

Sam is trapped in the city and quickly figures out that silence is the best defense against the monsters. Day One becomes a series of sound-based suspense sequences, which is fine.

A franchise about how making noise can kill you can be just as fun as the Freddy, Jason and Chucky entries exploring clever ways those killers can terrorize new victims. Or, the Saw films , with new traps and the Final Destinations, with deadly set pieces. Advertisement

So Sam has to cross a room littered with broken glass. The survivors can work really hard to prevent a big noise from attracting the monsters, only to be done in by a small, mundane noise.

A Quiet Place has the budget to stage such set pieces in New York City, or at least a convincing recreation thereof. Sam sneaks down abandoned streets and high traffic throughways, while the creatures scale skyscrapers.

One effective sequence is not even sound-specific, but Sam hides under a car. When the tires start to deflate it becomes a ticking clock for her to escape and find a new hiding spot.

What Day One is missing from the first two films is a deaf character whose whole family could communicate via American Sign Language. Focusing on new survivors gives A Quiet Place new accouterments, but they're less special without the deaf/ASL angle.

Sam crosses paths with Eric (Joseph Quinn), who emerges from the subway. They try to communicate with looks, which would be how most hearing people would have to adjust. Advertisement

Day One gets into the human stories of Sam and Eric along the way, but it feels more obligatory than the family drama of the first two films. Day One just needs to give them something to do to justify the monster fun.

Henri (Djimon Hounsou) from Quiet Place: Part II was also in New York with his wife and son on Day One . The prequel still leaves one wanting to spend more time with him.

Making Sam a terminal patient introduces other potentially interesting drama, but the film only follows it in the most conventional directions. The fact that Sam is not going to live either way could be explored more.

Surely, the human survival instinct remains whether it's the will to survive for another week or several years. Certainly, instant death by monster still seems worth avoiding, despite the pain Sam still endures from her medical condition.

The crisis does not dramatically change Sam's outlook on her fate. It gives her a goal within the city, but only to the extent she now has freedom from supervision, for better or worse.

One plot device of Day One might contradict Part II but it would be a spoiler to discuss. Advertisement

The premise of A Quiet Place is compelling enough that sequels can continue to tell standalone stories of survivors in different regions. They'll become increasingly familiar with each entry, but some will also rise to the challenge to distinguish themselves like in all franchises.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.

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