A Quiet Place: Day One
Hey everyone and welcome today we will be talking about the film A Quiet Place: Day One. Fun Fact, Lupita Nyong’o was terrified of cats and had to go through cat therapy to help overcome her fear for this role, she even ended up adopting a cat. This film came out in 2024 and stars Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, and Alex Wolff and was directed by Michael Sarnoski. So without further ado let’s get right into it.
A Quiet Place: Day one tells the beginning of the alien invasion that would ensure that humans stay quiet to survive or die.
A Quiet Place: Day One is a horror alien invasion film. It has similar vibes to A Quiet Place, Stranger Things, or The Last of Us.
The 2 Quiet Place movies were good and so with the announcement of this one I was intrigued to see a prequel but I was more interested as to why the aliens chose Earth compared to seeing Day One. Now after watching the film im happy that they showed day one because I was completely enthralled throughout the entire movie. One thing that I was thrilled that they didn’t do was try too hard to connect the characters in this movie to the characters in the other movies, the aliens were enough.
Lupita Nyongo stars as Samira who is going through cancer treatments during the beginning of the invasion. Cancer storylines are always sad and with an amazing actress like Lupita, you get the full emotional punch of seeing what someone in that stage of cancer would have to go through during this invasion. Throughout the film, she puts on a strong face and pushes people away even though she is struggling and needs help and I think it’s because she knows her time is limited and doesn’t want to form any connections. There’s one guy who is friendly with her at her hospice place by the name of Reuben and she is very mean to him but you can tell she cares for him and it was so sad to see him die. When Eric comes into the picture she tries to shoo him away but he sticks with her and it is for the best because he helps her to fulfill one of her last wishes to get pizza at Pastys and even though Patsys is destroyed he still manages to get her pizza and helps her have fun one last time.
Samira is a person who has a disease that has no cure and she can’t control how she feels or when it will kill her. As sad as it was she decides to take matters into her own hands in the end and after feeling fufilled she dies on her own terms. I thought this was the perfect story to follow in this film.
Joseph Quinn plays Eric and I feel like as much as Samira needed him, he needed her. He offered an interesting perspective of a foreigner who is here all alone when this takeover starts and his parents are in the UK. No matter how old you are, this would be horrifying, to be alone and not know if anyone you love or care about is ok. Throughout the film, he has lots of panic attacks which are very valid because who wouldn’t be freaking out with these aliens. He states how he doesn’t want to die and Samira really helps him with that. I was glad he survived in the end and he got to keep Frodo.
Speaking of Frodo, that cat was a trooper like there were so many reasons that cat should’ve died but it somehow came out unscathed. It was like a spirit guide and a therapy cat all in one.
The movie shows exactly what the title states, day one, this is not about the monster’s motives but really how everything happened in the beginning. I love how it all happened so quickly, one minute everyone is chilling and the next we are all on high alert and some adapt to survive while others you know, don’t. This movie also makes you realize how much noise you make because I was like wow step the wrong way then boom you getting tackled and sent to the grave.
One thing that was interesting that I don’t know if it was shared in the other films was the monster’s lack of ability to swim. Like the monsters were strong and fast but put them in some water and they were a gonner. I think that one thing about all of the films in the franchise is the main character’s ability to get around the monsters even if that means sacrificing themselves for others..
I thought the film was shot well to really show the city falling apart and to really drive home these apocalypse vibes. To really get that you need these wide shots so we can see the destruction and the film had plenty so we could really take in how fast the city fell apart.
I must say that the poster for this movie was also pretty cool, it looked like a sound wave. such an inventive and subtle way to show New York, the location for this movie, as a sound wave, the main plot point of this movie.
This movie not only pulls some emotional punches but also some horror vibes. You are already drawn in by Samira with her story which is sad, then you see how her friend, whom we just found out survived the initial attack, gets killed. It’s sad but shows you how careful you have to be because what happened to him was an accident. Speaking of accidents there was one where a guy in the theatre accidentally hits a man’s head too hard trying to get him to be quiet and you can see him freaking out from the guy making noise in the first place and then after he kills him he freaks out about that which shows how in stressful situations things may not go as you want. When it comes to horror they did a good job at getting the viewer to focus on one thing and then something else happening that catches you off guard and makes you jump.
My favorite part of the film was the shot on the bus where everything goes down. We see everyone at the back of the bus and Samira is slowly walking then boom chaos. It shows how fast it all happened and how quickly some people had to realize they needed to be quiet. It shows that with a lack of information, you really don’t know what you should be doing but you are trying to survive. It was shot cool as well showing all the debris and how it’s hard to see and you just see cars driving, people running, and people getting snatched up. It was such a chaotic scene but I loved it showing how much of a mess this situation was.
A Quiet Place: Day One is a great prequel to a pretty good series. It was shot really cool and showed how one day could change the world forever.
