Film Review - A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)

A Quiet Place: Day One is the third film in the series but it’s also a prequel and not directed by John Krasinski though he does have a story credit on the film, this time Michael Sarnoski takes the director’s chair and the focus shifts to New York City and a cancer patient named Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) who with her support cat Frodo is caught up in the mayhem and chaos that comes when the creatures invade and kill anyone who makes a noise and now her, Frodo and an Englishman (Joseph Quinn) have to make their way to safety.

I’m a big fan of the first 2 A Quiet Place films, they were great Sci-fi/Horror films that created an interesting world, and they were made in such a way by Krasinki that you wanted to see them in a cinema but without his guiding hand could the series continue to deliver the goods.

Happily, yes as this movie is as good as the first two films and Sarnoski does a good job recreating the tension, dread and horror that the world of these films has in spades as you try to keep quiet for as long as possible to avoid getting killed and the characters in these films don’t always succeed at that and there is one scene here that has a great use of weather.

Also Nyong’o is really good here and she does a lot with just her eyes in much of the film and they are so expressive when it comes to showing fear or happiness or sadness that you don’t really notice that much that she doesn’t have a lot of dialogue.

However my favourite character in this movie is Frodo the Cat played by 2 real life cats, Nico and Schitznel and throughout so much of this movie I kept asking myself “Is the Cat okay?”, “Will the Cat be okay?” and “Please let the Cat be okay” as he has such a beautiful face and I just wanted to give him all of the fusses and cuddles and pats and though at times he runs off thankfully like all good tussie pusses he knows where his owner is.

Also take note filmmakers, THIS IS HOW YOU DO A CAT ON FILM, you don’t do what Matthew Vaughn and his team on Argylle did and treat the cat as nothing more than a CGI prop to be carted around, you use real cats and let them have scenes where they get cuddles, fusses and pats and are integral parts of the film.

But if I have one issue with the film it is Joseph Quinn and his character, his performance is okay for the most part but he comes into the film quite late and because of that I didn’t feel that much of a connection to his character as I did with Sam and Frodo though he has some good scenes in the back half of the film.

And so that was A Quiet Place: Day One and while I wouldn’t last all that long in this world I enjoy going to these movies in a cinema and I was not disappointed, 3 and a half out of 5.