Two similar films in concept, but with a completely different plot. One I think didn’t work that great, but still seemed to get a whole load of awards and nominations. One that frustrated me so much that I was originally going to write this post to slate it. Without holding back, here we go.
A Quiet Place
Fronted by husband and wife team, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, “a family is forced to live in silence while hiding from monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing.” To add to that, it’s set in a post apocalyptic world – sounds great right? I thought so too for the first 30 minutes or so. It set off really well. It built up the story line really well, and was genuinely eerie until they presented the monsters. I thought they had honestly added them in as an afterthought. It’s kind of like Alien, as you don’t really see the whole thing, but you see bits. I think it certainly would have been better leaving you knowing what was happening rather than presenting that to you.
For me, after that point, the film did go down hill. I lost interest in it and got really frustrated with it.
I think some of this may be down to its short running time (only 90 minutes) and trying to fill such a small amount of time with such a large concept, or maybe what was in fact so good was the lack of any dialogue.
IMDb rating 7.6/10 My rating 5/10
Birdbox
So to skip to the chase, Birdbox, a film fronted by Sandra Bullock (I’d rather go back and watch Speed again), for the most part, with some cameos from other well known actors, works on a similar premise but instead of not being able to make a noise, the people are attacked if they see the “monster”. I’ll try not to delve too much deeper as I don’t want to include any plot spoilers. Unlike A Quiet Place, everyone must remain blindfolded when outdoors, or keep shutters and curtains closed when indoors, to protect themselves from what is outside.
The film is a little longer at 124 minutes long, but actually doesn’t feel that long. It had some interesting plot twists as well, and although a lot of critics are killing it with poor ratings, I felt it fared better than A Quiet Place overall.
IMDb rating 6.7/10 My rating 6/10 (more reasonable, eh!)
Conclusion
Having read into both films, it has been brought to my attention that I should really go and watch The Happening which is also similar in genre. Overall I really am not a big “horror” or post-apocalyptic type films, which fuels my dislike for films such as these, but I’ll leave you to make up your own mind on both.
