A Quiet Place: Day One

With a fresh vision, a new cast and a scare rate that just won’t quit, this bucks the trend for horrors with diminishing returns.

Day One delivers a wildly effective big city disaster film while making the most of the franchise’s core concept and keeping the series character-first. Lupita Nyong'o's energy and fight are hugely captivating. An ace digging into character complexities.

There isn’t wall-to-wall violence. There’s wall-to-wall expectations of it, and that’s even more chilling.

While Day One packs a poignant punch, it's not exactly in contention for scariest movie of the year.

As a franchise prequel, A Quiet Place: Day One doesn’t do enough world-building, but Lupita Nyong’o makes it worth a watch.

By the time Day One reaches its beautifully rendered and deeply moving conclusion, we're all in.

With effective jump scares and flawless production design from Simon Bowles (Apartment 7A), that ensures Manhattan looks suitably war torn, A Quiet Place: Day One delivers the goods without feeling wildly inventive.

Gives us two protagonists absolutely worth our empathy and investment (three if you include Frodo, the most chill cat in a stressful situation since Jones watched Harry Dean Stanton get eviscerated aboard the Nostromo).

While I do think that certain stories should end, I will admit that "A Quiet Place" still has enough excitement, enough possibilities, that this third outing may just be a precursor to at least one more ...

The special effects are convincing, but Sarnoski is smart enough to know that less is more.