For many, sound is the most effective way to communicate emotions, be noticed, and make a statement, but what happens when sound becomes a threat to your survival. Would you survive in a world where sound is dangerous? John Krasinski and team ponder this question in A Quiet Place. A Quiet Place is a horror story and thriller told mainly without the comfort of dialogue. The horror film was one of the biggest hit movies of 2018, grossing over $340 million at the box office and receiving mainly positive reviews. A Quiet Place also received an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, and won a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Sci/Horror Movie. John Krasinski hopes to repeat the success of A Quiet Place with A Quiet Place: Part 2.
A Quiet Place: Part 2 reunites fans of the first movie with the Abbott family. They are an average American family trying to survive in an apocalyptic landscape void of sound. You know just typical American life. A Quiet Place concluded with the Abbott family getting a new sense of hope as the battle between monsters and humans continue. A Quiet Place: Part 2 will soon hit theaters, so it’s time for a refresher on some of the important details of A Quiet Place.
Because this post discusses the plot from A Quiet Place, expect spoilers.
The Abbott Family Has Experienced Great Loss
A Quiet Place opens with the Abbott family gathering supplies at an abandoned convenience store. Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and Lee (John Krasinski) let their youngest child, Beau (Cade Woodward), know that the toy rocket he wants is too loud to take along with them. Despite their parents not allowing him to have the toy, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) lets Beau know that it is all right to take the toy in secret. She doesn’t see when he grabs a pack of batteries to put in the rocket. While traveling back home, Beau trails far behind playing with the loud rocket. The monster is quickly approaching and Lee tries to outrun it and save Beau. Lee isn’t fast enough and Beau is snatched up by the monster.
It’s a year later, and the Abbott family is still dealing with the pain of that loss. Regan feels distance between her and her father. She worries that he blames her for the incident. In order to protect his family, Lee seems obsessed with finding out about the monster. Evelyn is also now pregnant with a new baby, which may have been a decision made because of Beau’s death.
By the end of A Quiet Place, the Abbott family experiences another great loss. This time, Lee dies. The monster corners Regan and Marcus (Noah Jupe) as they hide in a car. Lee uses sign language to tell them that he loves them and always has, and then he screams, making the ultimate sacrifice for his children by drawing the monster's attention away from them and onto him. The Abbott family barely gets to grieve his death before they must face off against the monster again.
Likely, the death of Beau and Lee will still affect the Abbott family in A Quiet Place: Part 2. Based on the trailer for A Quiet Place: Part 2, it looks like the second movie takes place very soon after the first one ended. This should very much mean that the family is still in the grieving process.
The Monsters Are Weakened By High-Pitch Noises
At the conclusion of A Quiet Place, Regan and Evelyn learn the secret to destroying the monsters: high frequency sounds. The hearing aid that Lee made for Regan continues to glitch. It sends out feedback, high pitch noises, that only Regan and the monster can hear. Regan notices that the feedback hurts the monster. She then amplifies the sound by putting the device on a microphone. This weakens the monster, causing it to become disoriented, and making it lose its armor shell, which enables Evelyn to kill it with a shotgun.
A Quiet Place: Part 2 may involve the Abbott family using this new knowledge to take out more of these creatures. They will possibly help others use this technique against the monsters.
The Abbott Family Is Crafty
The Abbott family developed procedures and skills to survive in this new world. Even with the danger of a newborn and its loudness, the Abbott family planned ahead and gathered tools, supplies, and methods to keep the baby from attracting the monster. The Abbott family had an entire system in play for various situations that might arise due to sound and the monster. The Abbott family’s craftiness should come into play even more with them out on the road in A Quiet Place: Part 2.
People Can Be A Threat
When Lee and Marcus are walking through the woods to go home after gathering supplies and food, they stumble upon the dead body of a woman (Rhoda Pell). The woman’s companion, a man (Leon Russom), screams, in what we assume is a moment of great grief, to be killed along with her. This is a small moment in A Quiet Place, but it may be an important piece of the puzzle going into A Quiet Place: Part 2. The moment of the man and woman in the woods shows the state of many of the other families.
Some people are possibly trying to survive, but it's evident from the couple in the first film that this reality is a major strain on people. This could mean that the grief and pain of others in this world could present problems for families like the Abbotts, who are just trying to all survive. A Quiet Place: Part 2 trailer introduces Cillian Murphy’s character and he seems to be one of those people dealing with a lot of burden in this new world. This could mean that he could present a danger to the Abbott family, or he could be someone who has dealt with other humans who have been threats. The state of humanity since the monster invasion seems to be an important piece of A Quiet Place: Part 2’s storyline.
The World Lost The Battle Against The Monsters
Through Lee’s notes and newspaper clippings, viewers were given snippets of the chaos that ensued when these monsters arrived and attacked. This left at least 100,000 people dead and the monsters basically now in charge of Earth. However, now Evelyn, Marcus, and Regan know the secret weapon to destroying these monsters. This knowledge could give Earth a fighting chance against the monsters and we may see this play out in A Quiet Place: Part 2. The Abbott family could be on a journey to try to inform more people on how to combat these creatures.
A Quiet Place: Part 2 trailer also reveals that at least part of the movie takes place in the past, and we’ll get to see exactly how the invasion began and maybe what steps were taken to try to fight them.
A Quiet Place: Part 2 is definitely one of the most anticipated horror movies of 2020, so we’re excited to see how it all plays out, especially with the possibility of the story continuing beyond this movie. Rewatch A Quiet Place on Amazon Prime Video, and catch A Quiet Place: Part 2 in theaters on March 20, 2020.
