A Quiet Place (****)

There has been a horror Renaissance going on in recent years, a blink-and-you-miss-it run of great indie flicks that have reinvented and honored the classic genre. From "The Babadook" to "It Follows" and "The Witch" to "Get Out," John Krazinski's A QUIET PLACE doesn't necessarily rank among the best, but it's certainly a damn good time.

It's sometime in the soon-to-be future and the world is overrun with some form of sadistic creature that hunts with sound. Like the Demogorgon from "Stranger Things," these monsters feature no eyes and instead rely on a keen sense of sound to hunt their prey. Yes, sound, as in any noise louder than say a cough. Make a sound, and one of these beings sprints out and kills you in moments. We learn the rules (as good horror must do) in the film's opening scenes, and immediately the audience is thrust into a world of real consequence.

The story is of a family (named in the credits but I cannot recall their names mentioned in dialogue) led by Krazinski and his wife, Emily Blunt (also his off-screen wife). Together they raise a couple of kids, one of whom is deaf, and they work to maneuver life on a remote farmland with no fewer than 3 of these monsters living in close proximity. It's been over a year, as the opening titles tell us, and it's clear that this family is as resourceful as folks could be in this situation.

The conflict. The mother and father, as smart as they are, find themselves pregnant with a baby on the way any day. This lends itself to the film's most stunning sequence in which the mother's water breaks just as the house is being surveyed by the creatures. It's not a scene to be spoiled, but simply marveled at. I can't remember a movie using labor as such an effective element of plot, and boy would you be hard-pressed to find someone who has delivered a baby in utter silence. Another scene shows the father and his son fishing along a river, and then learning that things like water can mask their own voices from the creatures. The film has many moments of set up and pay off, mostly to great effect, and the result is a movie that commands the silence of any who are watching.

The film isn't without its faults, mostly on a concept level. I could think of 100 ways this family would have been killed long ago - a sneeze, or a stomach ache, or any number of ways that we can inadvertently make noise. We learn there are neighbors in remote homes that have also survived, signaled by a nightly fire. It makes sense for those survivors to distance themselves from each other, but what is the long-term plan here? The movie offers some sort of resolution in the final minutes that has a way to feel ploying and slightly reaching. I think this movie is effective in the way it uses a lush soundscape and strong characters (Emily Blunt in particular is stunning here), but applying the rules of logic makes plot holes all the more apparent. This is certainly an enjoyable movie, best seen in a crowded theater. Is it a revolutionary addition to the horror genre? I don't think it makes enough noise.