My husband and I saw A QUIET PLACE last weekend, opening weekend for the drama/horror flick directed by John Krasinski and starring him and wife Emily Blunt. The nerve wracking film was, of course, the feature of our theater-going experience, yet it was the audience that delivered the most interesting performance. Because they were quiet. Silent, in fact. Each and every viewer.

That never happens at the theater. Ever. People talk, laugh, question what's on screen, peek at phone screens that light up, ruffle wrappers, slurp sodas, and loudly gobble handfuls of popcorn.*

Not so during A QUIET PLACE. The entire place was quiet as can be. Which I found crazy... and compelling... and a huge compliment to Krasinski, Blunt, and all involved in making the movie.

A QUIET PLACE is so very quiet that viewers automatically adjust their behavior to match the mood—perhaps partly, subconsciously, in hopes of helping protect the film family that's in peril.

That on-screen family staying silent in order to survive is the very heart of the sci-fi horror film. The greatest horror for the audience is the idea any one of the family might be immediately killed for eliciting the slightest sound. A sneeze, a stumble, a mistaken move on creaky floorboards could attract mysterious sound-hunting creatures that decimate noisemakers.

As the tagline says, "If they hear you, they hunt you." 

Staying silent and staying alive is the primary goal of Lee and Evelyn Abbott (Krasinski and Blunt) for their family, isolated from others as the rest of the world seeks the same survival strategy.

A QUIET PLACE keeps viewers not only silent, but sitting on the edge of their seats. Throughout the entire thing. It's impossible to not be terrified of what's out there and what might happen to the cast of characters you sincerely care about.

Krasinski and Blunt do a fantastic job of playing doting parents protecting their kiddos in the most bizarre and unimaginable of scenarios. Kudos go to the kids in the cast, too. Millicent Simmonds plays daughter Regan with spunk,  spark, and defiance typical of any preteen. Regan's situation is all the scarier as the young gal on screen—as she is in real life—is deaf, unable to hear creature-attracting sounds around her or the madness as creatures arrive. Little brother Marcus (Noah Jupe) does hear those sounds, and Jupe convincingly conveys the never-ending terror a young boy would feel in such circumstances.

A QUIET PLACE doesn't have a moral-of-the-story wrap up or reveal any grand truths (other than express the unimaginable lengths all parents would surely go to protect their kids). And few scenes likely resonate with anyone (because who among us has ever been in such dire straits?). A QUIET PLACE does, though, entertain. Quietly, compellingly, from Scene One to credits.

John Krasinski and Emily Blunt on A QUIET PLACE and more:

A QUIET PLACE (rated PG-13 "for terror and some bloody images") opened in theaters April 6, 2018. Find out more on the film's Facebook page.

*Confession: Jim and I are typically guilty of popcorn gobbling during movies but we had gobbled it all before the film even began as we'd not had lunch before the matinee movie time. Good thing or we would have had to suck our way through our popcorn pail in order to consume it quietly.

BONUS: Click here for my review of the other fabulous film directed by John Krasinski.