“If they hear you, they hunt you” is the appropriate tagline for A Quiet Place.
Imagine a world where making a sound will literally get you killed by creatures with hyper-sensitive hearing. That’s the synopsis of the film, A Quiet Place, the first surprise horror hit this year. Written and directed by John Krasinski, the movie centers on a family living in this new world. Krasinski and real-life wife, Emily Blunt, play the parents of two children (a son and a deaf daughter), and with another baby on its way. Even without much dialogue or sound, the movie does a great job with showing horror through facial expressions and musical cues. And it shows that silence can be terrifying. When you’re left with nothing but your imagination and thoughts, anything can happen. We see that when we are in the daughter’s point of view (it is often silent), and we still feel dread as we know there are monsters out there stalking them. Instead of using the loss of hearing as a handicap, A Quiet Place actually elevates it to create more fear and chaos. It’s no wonder people lined up to watch this movie.
With the success of A Quiet Place I thought it would be interesting to look at other movies and TV shows that also took silence to a scary level.
The Gentlemen
I have to start with this memorable episode. When The Gentlemen strip Sunnydale of their voices, Buffy and the Scooby Gang have to rely on communicating silently in order to defeat them. As in A Quiet Place, the characters have to work together without any words to survive and beat the monsters. What I also like about this episode is that, despite the lack of talking, a lot is revealed between the characters (Willow discovers Tara has magical powers and Buffy discovers Riley is a member of The Initiative.) It’s kind of ironic it was the only episode of Buffy to be nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing.
“The Body” Buffy the Vampire Slayer
When Buffy loses her mother to an aneurysm, we experience every emotion from her and the rest of the cast. There is no music in this episode, creating a heavy and somber mood. And who can forget Anya’s speech? You didn’t need a musical score in this moment, just her tears and voice. In A Quiet Place emotions can be still be conveyed through touch and sight–and it can still be just as powerful.
Don’t look behind you.
This film focuses on a deaf writer working on her new book in the middle of the woods. You can pretty much guess what happens next: a masked killer appears to terrorize her. But she is able to turn the tables on the killer (in the showdown, she is able to outmaneuver the killer when he creeps up behind her, knowing she won’t hear him, but she feels his breath on the back of her neck.) Similarly, in A Quiet Place, the family is able to use the creatures’ hypersensitive hearing against them to beat them.
Was it something they saw?
When a group of thieves breaks into a blind man’s house, they get more than they bargained for in a house that’s pretty much set up as a booby trap. Their only chance of survival to stay as quiet as possible. Both Don’t Breathe and A Quiet Place create high tension in the quiet darkness.
What are some other movies or TV shows that used silence effectively? What is it about being quiet that also scares? Sound off below!
All images from IMDB.com
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