Category: Creature horror
Directed by: Michael Sarnoski
-----
One of the most famous quotes ever to come from the pen of English essayist Samuel Johnson was that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel". The quote is not actually about patriotism itself, but critiques the insincere use of patriotism and how some individuals exploit the concept of patriotism for self-serving purposes. And if I may bastardise the quote for second, Damo the middle-aged movie reviewer thus states "prequels are the last refuge of creatively-bankrupt movie studios - who may or may not be scoundrels".
And I start off with this because the first "A Quiet Place" movie was a surprise smash hit - a surprise smash hit to the point that Paramount Pictures decided to do Paramount Pictures things and pump out a sequel. I haven't seen the sequel, but I get the impressions it didn't quite hit the same creative and box office heights as the first. And so we are faced with the age old question - what do you do when you can't advance a story further, but want to milk more out your IP? The answer - you run it back to the beginning.
So now we have "A Quiet Place: Day One", chronicling the very beginning of the monster invasion of Earth (which takes place in New York, because of course).
The plot:
Lupita Nyongo plays Sam, a woman dying from cancer and living out her days at a hospice in upstate New York, alongside her cat Frodo who keeps her company. Sam reluctantly agrees to go on an day trip to a New York City theatre (on the promise of pizza afterwards) for a marionette puppet show. Sam sneaks out for a quick bit of personal shopping then back to the theatre right at the end, and right when she thinks its pizza time, we see meteors flash across the sky and the patients are ordered back on the bus to evacuate and head back to the hospice.
