A Quiet Place (2018)

the period between when the girl realized the hearing aid hurt the monster, and when she put it up to the mic, why did she continue to wear it if it hurt her?

and the way to kill the monsters is to thrust that hearing aid into a microphone rigged up to giant speakers, the existence of which in a world of COMPLETE MANDATORY SILENCE is the single fucking dumbest contrivance they could have come up with

she turned it off tbf. if she's thrown it away it would have been a horrible insult to her dad, who she deep down knows doesn't really hate her

who she deep down knows doesn't really hate her

don't even start me on that stupid fucking scene

giant speakers? small radio speakers in the sound-muffled basement iirc

but why are they there

Cmon all the nail was v obviously a Chekhov's Gun

yeah I loved the nail, and the combo of already-not-screaming-from-labour plus only-the-audience-know-about-the-nail.

movie that seems to be being praised for eschewing many tired horror/thriller tropes

anyone doing this is an idiot. I went in expecting some jump scares & a gimmick, movie delivered.

getting pregnant was the one looks-like-dumbshit activity that doesn't get explained later, and obv it is VERY dumbshit. let's assume he's been diligently c'ing on t's since the first kid got chomped, but she got preggers off pre-come.

thrust that hearing aid into a microphone rigged up to giant speakers

again iirc but it is not rigged to giant or indeed any speakers, she just creates high-frequency feedback in the hearing aid

and yet she continues to wear the hearing aid unnecessarily despite the pain it causes her, that was odd. She could have carried it in her pocket

again iirc but it is not rigged to giant or indeed any speakers, she just creates high-frequency feedback in the hearing aid

why is it there though

a microphone hooked up to tiny speakers in the same room, why

if anyone else is trying to find people alive via radio, he would need a microphone to respond to them

it's there to talk into

In The Survivalist, which is pretty hardcore, someone gets pregnant but no way do they carry it to term.

Honest question: where did all the basement water come from? I might have looked at my watch for a second, but I totally missed it. Hundreds of gallons of running water from ... where? The sink? Broken tank?

if anyone else is trying to find people alive via radio, he would need a microphone to respond to them

in the same room

...how else do you think it can work?

If you're talking to someone on the phone, do you have the microphone in one room, and the speaker in another, and you go from one room to the other depending on whether you are listening or speaking, but the two parts are also not connected to each other

yeah I was confused by the water s well, it seemed to be a broken pipe, but then to have taken no trouble at all to clear up. as though they had set it up as another defence mechanism, inspired by the waterfall.

...how else do you think it can work?

but why is there a microphone and speakers in a world in which a microphone and speakers will kill you

with this movie, why ask why, seriously

I have an irrational celebrity hatred of J Kras and this film just confirmed every possible suspicion of his psychic and intellectual constitution

with this movie, why ask why, seriously

true, in general i’m just sick of deus ex machina bullshit

but why is there a microphone and speakers

because Jim wants to find out that they are not the only functioning humans left alive in the world, and form a society!

in a world in which a microphone and speakers will kill you

in an elaborately soundproofed basement

it's not deus ex machina if it's set up throughout the film

ffs

it's absolutely a strength that the script keeps ramping up tension / frustration by doing things like "wtf why does he have all this radio stuff that makes sound," or "what the shit, why does he need to go to his offsite pitchfork stash when he had a shotgun earlier," and then later on showing you that the basement has been soundproofed as fuck in the course of revealing a whole series of other things about their preparation.

because Jim wants to find out that they are not the only functioning humans left alive in the world, and form a society!

The first time you see him light his fire beacon he sees all these other fire beacons being lit, so forget the rest of the world, he knows they're not the only one within a couple of square miles. Though the movie does imply that as usual in the apocalypse, other people are as much of a problem as the primary problem.

I like how they holed up in a house seemingly stacked top to bottom with rusty cans and the like. My first duty would be to quietly remove all the rusty cans and whatnot. Though I guess no one made any noise with all the clutter, so maybe it was precious clutter.

Early on, the deaf girl stares into the basement, turns on the light, then is about to take a few tentative steps down when Jim stops her and gets mad. "Don't go down there!" he signs, iirc. And she's all "why not?" And he's all "just don't." And I'm all "why not?" Is that where he keeps his radio? Is he just worried she'll start scanning for reception or something? Or does he know the radio, which makes noise, is dangerous? That and the flood, I totally missed something.

My family and I watched the sad "Andre the Giant" documentary last night, and needless to say both girls were perplexed. People actually watched this stuff? Why did they watch it if they knew it was fake? They are such bad actors, people watched this? And so on. And the best we came up with was, well, some people watched it to be entertained, not to be convinced it was "real," and it made me think of this movie, which we had just seen, and it made me consider that a movie doesn't have to be perfect to be good and doesn't have to make perfect sense and so on. Which is fair, and also why I stressed to my daughter that I don't know if this movie was necessarily bad, I just didn't like it. But it still doesn't excuse the directorial decision of accompanying every single jump scare with a HUGE LOUD NOISE which even my kid started to find repetitive and annoying, especially for a movie ostensibly about staying quiet, and definitely shows they did not have the courage of their convictions to let the tension work on its own and were hedging their bets.

Can I emphasize again how much I hated the triumphant ending, which rang totally false, given the horrific life this family had been living for over a year and the tragedy that had literally just taken their paterfamilias for no good reason? Another mystery: on his mostly unnecessary whiteboard, he had scribbled something like "number of monsters: 3, confirmed?" I guess those were just the territorial neighborhood monsters? Because clearly there are lots of monsters around, and they seem to be willing to hustle to any source of noise. (Though again, if a couple of woodchucks catch their ear, you'd think they'd get tired from all this aimless running around in search of every mouse fart.)

A bloodhound can track the path of a single individual through a high traffic area after 48 hours. An ear monster which looks like one giant cochlea can stand right in front of you and not hear your stifled breathing, or heartbeat, come now

I sort of suspected that they weren't eating people, they just had really sensitive hearing and were killing everything just to get some peace and quiet.

I think the movie turned for me the 20th time someone put their finger to their mouth to signal "shhhhh!" After a year of being stalked by ear monsters, you'd think "shhh" would be the default. Maybe finger to the lips means "extra shhhhh"?

lol same

ever been in a school cafeteria where the teachers tell the kids not to talk...how does that typically go?

the water in the basement thing was very clearly communicated btw how did you guys miss that

so what was it?

the monster damaged a pipe while it was looking for them, there's a slow pan to reveal it after John k leaves the barn

I remember the pan, I just didn't catch what precipitated it. would there even be running water over a year after all the sewage systems have been abandoned?

I think, like Josh, I just looked away at the wrong moment. Possibly glancing around after someone's reaction to a monster scare!

Kras delivering a rather longwinded ASL proclamation of love to his kids as a murderous alien attempts to claw through the roof directly over their heads was a personal highlight

lengthy not longwinded

the water in the basement thing was very clearly communicated btw how did you guys miss that

― gbx, Sunday, April 15, 2018 4:35 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kind of the theme of the thread so far

this was effective even if I never accepted that the dad and his kid could talk beneath a waterfall but can't whisper within the four walls of a home

Can I emphasize again how much I hated the triumphant ending, which rang totally false, given the horrific life this family had been living for over a year and the tragedy that had literally just taken their paterfamilias for no good reason?

where did you see triumph? They figured out how to win against the creatures; it's revenge, not triumph

SPOILERS

the point at which it completely lost me was when she was about to give birth (alone, because of course everyone would go off and do random things alone in this universe, that makes perfect sense and is perfectly logical) and she stumbled down the stairs and pierced her foot on a spike that was shown to the audience just moments earlier with great big flashing jazz lights saying "PAY ATTENTION TO THIS SPIKE IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT AND WILL FACTOR INTO THE PLOT VERY SOON". she could have just let out a scream because she's having a baby and it's fucking painful, but no, there needed to be a comedy foot piercing as well, because contrivance upon contrivance is how farce builds to a climax, and because the filmmakers don't trust their audience

― karl wallogina (Autumn Almanac),

you must loathe Hitchcock

I'm impressed that Krasinski and Blunt managed to have sex silently

also how do they muffle bathroom noises

this movie was ok

plenty of dumb shit in it but a pleasant enough hour-plus

that's about it

otm

xpost The triumph is that it literally ends with a grinning Emily Blunt pumping the shotgun in preparation for the monsters arriving. They figured it out, cracked the code, learned how to stop them. But it did not feel like revenge to me, it felt like a cute Hollywood ending.

I liked the Red Letter review. They mostly liked it, but wished there was just a little more emotional drama to it. For example, when Jim (do the characters have names?) tells his daughter how much he loves her, was there ever any doubt whatsoever that either of her parents didn't love her? And the scene where Emily Blunt is with the baby in the basement, what if for even a moment she had to decide: the baby or me? For that matter, they brought up, the subject of the baby at all would have been a rich source of character development. Maybe one parent wanted it and the other didn't? Maybe there would be some discussion at all about the merits of raising this baby in a world where raising a baby seems like a death warrant?

Honestly, I'm happy not to have that information if that is how they managed to keep it to 90 minutes. However, that kind of conflict would have made it a better movie.

The triumph is that it literally ends with a grinning Emily Blunt pumping the shotgun in preparation for the monsters arriving. They figured it out, cracked the code, learned how to stop them. But it did not feel like revenge to me, it felt like a cute Hollywood ending.

I still don't see how this is cheesy but ok. Killing the creatures will bring no lasting satisfaction, as I'm sure she'll learn when Earth returns to normal and she returns to therapy.

they were planning to give birth by the waterfall, right? i mean, they didn't have a great contingency plan...

WHY DIDN'T THEY LIVE NEXT TO THE WATERFALL

the damp kept messing up the giant speakers

WHY DIDN'T THEY LIVE NEXT TO THE WATERFALL

A White Noisy Place (2018)

those poor children, the only thing they were allowed to play on the piano was John Cage's "4'33"

This was dumb as shit, wtf everybody

jim's pullout game must've been very weak

tbf, emily blunt, etc etc

This was dumb as shit, wtf everybody

shakey otm.

so we have to believe that this things have defeated every army across the globe but they end up vulnerable to a single shotgun blast. why didn't the family live in the basement? or attempt to soundproof their house in any way or even close the fucking doors? or have some remotely operated noisemakers set up around the farm? i nearly screamed when they put the baby in the box - and then they sit there calmly chatting and not freaking out that they've had to put their baby in a fucking sealed box. and then the leak - it looked like at least 10,000 litres of water down there, that must have been one giant pipe that got broken.

i've seen both of these and didn't love either. didn't hate them either. the premise doesn't hold up to scrutiny but that isn't what doesn't make the film work, cos lots of horror doesn't. it's just that in terms of apocalyptic horror, it does one thing over and over again, and doesn't do it particularly well.

and the indicating kills me. do we need an overdramatic finger over the mouth every time someone is telling someone else to be quiet?

things that would get you killed, in my estimation:

1) farting/pooping
2) coughing
3) sneezing
4) peeing
5) snoring
6) talking in sleep
7) literally any squirrel playing outside your house
8) sex
9) pushing someone in a wheelchair

The hand mouth finger move, though overused, the more I think about it the more I think it is VERY necessary

yes I am trying really hard to be quoted out of context

And to your point about the squirrels, they had a jump scare in the second film with a bunch of birds that fly away suddenly. Now birds flying away wouldn't be as loud as they are in a movie that is trying to use that moment to scare you, but yeah that should have still been enough to summon a decibelgorgon.

The thing that bothers me the most is when there is a noise trap or an accident that creates noise- the characters go "jig's up!" and run. I have no idea why they run. Shouldn't they just move away from the noise object immediately and then stand still? The thing is going to come smack the source of the noise (why do they seem to just smack things that make noise? Are they hunting or just pissed off?) and then it will simply move along, right? The noise of running tips them off pretty good. I couldn't tell if they were supposed to have any other way of detecting people, but maybe that was made obvious at some point. I forget. But maybe that's why it's not worth staying quiet anymore?

heh i was wondering about that too.

esp since these things seem to be light-speed fast once alerted

Second film felt very much like episodes 4 and 5 of the third series of some interminable Walking Dead type show.

Yikes wouldn't go that far, but they did abandon the fun nobody-talks element so it did seem way more generic in that sense. Will say it did feel way more akin to modern survival console story games like Last Of Us 2 etc. Maybe that sounds even worse, but Walking Dead is a pretty dismal comparison these days.

Tbf, I did say third series not eleventh series

I read this thread for a little while before I realized it wasn't about the Emily Dickinson biography by Terence Davies.

Why is 90% of horror just dumb garbage?

Um, Theodore Sturgeon to thread?