SPOILER WARNING: The following article gives away crucial moments from the A Quiet Place movies, so unless you are caught up, make like the Abbotts and be sure to carefully tiptoe through these plot details.
One of the best horror movies in recent memory (if not all time), A Quiet Place, is expanding its intriguing, post-apocalyptic universe even further with an upcoming 2024 movie called A Quiet Place: Day One, which serves as a prequel to the first two acclaimed hits. Therefore, it is joining a long line of great horror movie franchises that are not told in chronological order.
Luckily, so far, the films have made it relatively easy to follow along by opening each installment with title cards that indicate exactly how many day we are into the global invasion of vicious, sound-hunting extraterrestrials at that point. Using that information and what we already know about A Quiet Place: Day One — which is hitting theaters this summer — we have compiled a quick, convenient reference guide to help explain the A Quiet Place movies timeline below. Naturally, we shall start at the beginning.
Day 1 (Millbrook)
One of the many things that made the original A Quiet Place from 2018 one of the most unique alien invasion movies of its time is that it dropped us right in the middle of its post-apocalyptic setting, keeping its cataclysmic origins a mystery. That was until three years later with the release of A Quiet Place Part II, which begins with an intense cold open that shows us the origin of the invasion, as seen by the citizens of a small town in upstate New York called Millbrook.
After Lee Abbott (John Krasinski, who also returned to write and direct the sequel) sees the aftermath of a mysterious disaster in Shanghai on TV at the local general store, he meets his wife, Evelyn (Emily Blunt), non-hearing daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and son Beau at his older son, Marcus’ (Noah Jupe), little league baseball game. The event is interrupted by a meteor shower that brings the alien race — referred to by some as Death Angels — to Earth, leading to an attack that sends the entire town in a desperate frenzy. As the Abbotts desperately struggle to reunite with one another, Lee figures out that the creatures are attracted to sound.
Day 1 (New York City)
As the title suggests, A Quiet Place: Day One takes place around the same time as the cold open for A Quiet Place Part II. However, this upcoming horror movie is showing the origins of the invasion from a new group of survivors — including one played by Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o and another by Stranger Things Season 4 cast member Joseph Quinn — and takes the action out of upstate New York and right in the heart of New York City.
We also know from the first official trailer for A Quiet Place: Day One that Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou is reprising his role from the sequel as a character only identified as “Man on Island,” which suggests that the prequel may reveal his real name and show his journey to his sanctuary, which he describes was by boat with help from the National Guard. We will have to wait until director Michael Sarnoski’s thriller is released to find out over how many days the film takes place, unless the Day One subtitle is meant to indicate that the story chronicles the first 24 hours of the invasion.
Day 89
Much like its follow-up, the original A Quiet Place also begins with an intense, heartbreaking cold open, but one that takes place well into the apocalypse. Merely eighty-nine days have passed since the invasion began, but very little of the population and very little sign of civilization remains, as seen by the dreadfully quiet and desolate opening shots of what is left of Millwood. On the bright side, there is still a relatively plentiful amount of supplies at the general store for the Abbott Family to take, including a toy rocket ship that Beau (Cade Woodward) wishes for, but Lee, speaking in American Sign Language, denies due to the noise it creates.
Little does the family know that Regan has snuck the toy to her younger brother, until later during the family’s walk on a sandy path they have laid down to ensure a quiet trek home. The silence is broken by the sound of Beau’s rocket ship, which attracts the first Death Angel we see in the franchise. Lee races toward his son, hoping to reach him before the creature does, but is too late.
Days 472-474
Following the cold open, the rest of A Quiet Place is set roughly a year after Beau’s tragic death. We see a deeper glimpse into how the Abbotts have managed maintain some stability in their new lives — such as continuing to speak almost exclusively in sign language and home-schooling the children. Lee has also taken measures to ensure his family’s safety by setting up a surveillance system around their farmhouse, using morse code in hopes of communicating with other survivors, and compiling comprehensive notes about the creatures’ strengths and weaknesses.
A series of horrific circumstances takes place between Day 473 and 474 — including Evelyn going into labor with Baby Abbott, and Lee -- to ensure Marcus and Regan’s safety against a Death Angel -- sacrificing himself by letting out a loud scream that diverts the creature’s attention away from the children. Soon after, the surviving family members discover that a high-pitched frequency emitting from her cochlear implant can be used against the monsters’ extremely sensitive hearing. This comes in handy in the days that follow.
Days 474-477
Following the cold open, the main story of A Quiet Place Part II picks up very soon after the last film left off, as Evelyn, Regan, Marcus, and Baby Abbott (placed in a box equipped with an oxygen tank to keep him safe and quiet) leave their home in the midst of the destructive Death Angels attack. They come across an old friend named Emmett (2024 Academy Award nominee Cillian Murphy) , the last of his own family who lives in a steel, soundproof bunker where he allows the Abbotts to stay, albeit reluctantly. He admits he never reached out to them before after seeing how savage other survivors have become, which we see an example of during Emmett and Regan’s journey outside the bunker.
Setting that plot point in motion is Regan’s theory that a radio playing “Beyond the Sea” on repeat is a message from a place literally “beyond the sea,” convincing her to leave the bunker on her own and prompting Evelyn to ask Emmett to bring her back. Instead he joins her on this search for an island sanctuary that turns out to exist and is one of the few places free of Death Angels, due to their inability to swim. Unfortunately, at the end of A Quiet Place Part II, it is discovered that one creature has found its way onto the island via boat, which Regan is eventually able to defeat by transmitting the sound from her hearing aid across the island’s radio station signal.
That is the timeline of A Quiet Place so far. There is also another installment called A Quiet Place Part III that is expected to release in 2025. Can you keep quiet until then, or are you too excited already?
