Hear me out: A Review of 'A Quiet Place: Day One'

(image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

WGHS Entertainment staff members, Cheyenne, Robert, and Lochlan give their opinions about A Quiet Place: Day One, released on June 28, 2024. 
​by Cheyenne Seagraves, Robert Arizmendi, and Lochlan Chastain

In the beginning, it shows the main character, Sammy (Lupita Nyong’o), is in a therapy group session because she has a disease. The nurse of the group, Reubun (Alex Wolff), takes them to see a play, and as soon as they are going to get her pizza for one last time, the horror starts. 

Cheyenne:
I loved the first couple of movies, and I loved the message John Krasinski was trying to send to his kids, so my expectations for this one were high. In addition, the trailers made me want to watch it as well. 

After they had to get back on the bus to head back because the invasion was going to start, we see how sad the main character Sammy looks because she knows she’s going to die, and she can’t get the pizza for the last time. 

I like that these movies aren’t gore movies; instead, they build suspense and I think that makes a better horror movie. There is very little dialogue which could mean that it’s boring for some people, but if they made a lot of noise and talked the whole time, they’d all be dead. 

I like that they’re in the city because when you think of the city, it’s loud and crowded, so it would make it harder for them to survive, and the fact that she has to take care of an animal that could make noise at any given moment also adds to the struggle of her survival. 

When she found the kids in the fountain and gave them something to eat was heartbreaking, and the helicopters being loud was so hard to watch since we know that any noise attracts them. 

I thought that it wasn’t a smart idea for her to walk in the crowd if she was just going to go against it, and she already had an idea that the aliens were going to come because of the amount of noise and people that were walking, which did end up happening. That was a little predictable. 

I like how Joseph Quinn’s character Eric followed her even though Sammy didn’t want him to because they both needed each other’s company. When they got to Sammy’s apartment, I liked the comedic relief when he couldn't kick the door down the first time. I also felt like it was very cowardly of her to try to leave while he was sleeping. Any time they’re running away from the aliens, it’s just creating more noise and more attraction which is just always hard to watch in horror movies. Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good, but it didn’t feel like it should have been a part of the A Quiet Place trilogy. 

Lochlan: 
I really enjoyed the first movie, but I wasn’t too excited about the second one. The third movie focuses on an entirely new character who is terminally ill with cancer, named Sam. Sam and her cat, Frodo, live in New York where Sam is an acclaimed poet.  I didn’t really like Sam as a character, she was played beautifully by Lupita Nyong’o, but she was irritating. Her character has a bad attitude and her “plan” is really stupid. Rather than survive, she wants to get a slice of pizza and eat it in a jazz club in Harlem, like she and her father did when she was younger. 

The beginning of the movie is really interesting to watch as the aliens come in very quickly to cause some trouble. I was hoping for an explanation of the ‘Death Angels’ and why they are attacking humans but it was really just the first instance of the aliens on Earth rather than a dive into their origin. 

There was one returning character for the movie, from A Quiet Place 2, the man from the island, whose name is Henri, is in New York and helps Sam to stay quiet. Henri held his hand over Sam’s mouth to prevent her from coughing as they listened to the military explain that the aliens are attracted to noise. I liked that they brought Henri back for this movie and gave him more screen time since he died in A Quiet Place 2.

The ending was actually really nice and was something I did not expect. The movie isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t feel like an A Quiet Place movie. It was more of a romantic horror mix that was thrown into the world of A Quiet Place. If the movie was more about the origin of the aliens, I think everyone would have really liked it, but the story we got wasn’t bad, just not what was wanted. The movie was overall very good, except for the characters feeling undercooked in a sense.

Robert: 
I really liked the first two movies in the A Quiet Place series, so I had my hopes up for this movie. I was mainly hoping for an explanation of where the aliens came from and since it was taking place in the city, I was ready to see the different strategies the new main characters devised.
 
It felt weird that the main character was more worried about chasing pleasure instead of trying to survive and get safe before seeking to have a fun time. I also didn’t like how the ending went down with Sammy. I felt like there was so much more potential to end the movie.

I also think that the weakness of the death angels being that they can’t swim is very flawed. I would assume that they have their version of water on whatever planet they came from, so it is a stretch for them not to know how to swim at all. Also, it's a little confusing that they have advanced hearing but can’t hear breathing or heartbeats. Dogs can listen to human heartbeats from around up to 15 feet away so I don’t get why the Death Angels couldn’t do the same with their advanced hearing. 

Overall it was a decent movie if you ignore some of the flaws it has, but it didn’t compare to the first two movies that came out. We rate this movie a 3 out of 5.