The Silence

Same story as "Sshhh" and "Bird Box", In this movie you can speak (loudly).But you can see, which is different by Netflix.

The Silence mutes any and all brain activity, sending viewers into a quiet sleep. “Shhhh! Be vewy vewy quiet! I’m hunting carnivewous ancient bats!”. For even the most minuscule of noises will send a swarm of ‘Pitch Black’ ‘Doctor Who’-esque bat demons that will scratch, bite and gnaw at your flesh. Based on a novel apparently, however any and all originality was tossed out of the family car window when both the superior ‘A Quiet Place’ and hugely popular ‘Bird Box’ were capitalising on the whole “sense prevention” horror schtick. Basically, it’s both those films put together. Ancient bat creatures are released from an uncharted cave system and are terrorising the continent of North America, where we follow a family trying to survive and reach a refuge.

Problem is, this family is so chilled and relaxed during this heightened state of emergency, that any and all threat is relinquished from the nonchalant acting and careless attitudes. Urgh, honestly! Leonetti is doing his absolute best in unimaginatively mimicking other similar films, where veteran and all-round talent Tucci is waltzing around the countryside showing a face of “I can’t be bothered, release me from this torturous nightmare”.

Plagued by infuriatingly stupid plot conveniences and character choices, the severe lack of tension halts the momentum entirely. Heck, it’s not even in neutral anymore. It’s reversing! Examples include (brace yourself...): handing a handgun to the uncle who is then left to die, ginger son conveniently switching cars before one of them veers over a verge, iPhones instantly muting themselves when submerged in water for a total of three seconds and bringing an obviously loud dog with you. That last example, accompanied with an unnecessary scene involving members of the public banishing a mother and her baby due to generating far too much noise, are simply utilised to showcase the destructive nature of humanity. Yup. Humans suck, and this film wants you to know that. You shan’t...

Sort of like Birdbox or A Quiet Place The movie feels sort of rushed with the initial world building being different from something we would be more familiar with, like zombies for instance. It introduces an entirely new set of monsters with new rules that we have to apply to the narrative. Then it skips most of that world building to get into a weird humans are the real monster sort of plot and you sort of lose interest in it at that point. The monsters are pretty but not very scary and even though the casting of the human characters is great and the direction is solid, this movie does not rise much above mediocrity, unfortunately.