Falling down the plot holes: Why ‘A Quiet Place’ is a loud disappointment

As with World War Z, why wasn’t sound generally used to distract or attract the creatures? If it is known that something is sensitive to noise in general (even if it is unknown that particular frequencies are especially painful for them), then why not use sound as an asset to drown out other noises, like the waterfall mentioned in this review?

Also, the creatures themselves make noise; how does that fit in with their sensitivity to noise?

Hi, I disagree with many of your points.
The Baby Debacle: I found it believable that they wanted a new child and that they had a plan to handle the sound. Humanity must live on despite the monsters.
Basement/Soundproof: They were constructing it. It wasn’t finished yet. The plan was to live there once the baby was born. The baby was born prematurely, as you may have noticed, so the plan didn’t work.
The Monsters: I partly agree, less would have been more. But at the same time, to show the monster listening forced the filmmakers to show the monster really close up.
Greatest Minds: Yes, someone should have figured that out earlier. But maybe they did, and there were just too many monsters, so they couldn’t spread the word. We don’t know the whole backstory.
Guns: Look at the end. As soon as she fires the gun, loads of monsters come running. That might be a reason why they didn’t use guns so much – and may be the reason why military and others didn’t have much success…
Bodily functions: Perhaps you are right. But it would have been a completely different kind of movie if it had been about someone trying desperately not to fart…
Family Guy: I agree that his first priority at the end would have been to create another loud noise, away from himself. Like throwing the axe into the tool shed. That self-sacrifice came too easy.
Silent cinema: I think just because the film wants to be like silent cinema doesn’t mean no one can speak (in a whisper or sign language). In a lot of scenes, there is good visual storytelling, but maybe there could have been more. In a silent world, stating your emotions to someone verbally would be less important, you could say it with a look. At the same time, when they do speak, in the soundproof basement, they should have been more amazed at finally being able to speak to each other, I missed that reaction to speech.
River bed: Yes, to use constant sounds from the surroundings to hide their own sounds should definitely have been in their interest. To imagine the son hadn’t been shown a noisy river before that scene, that this was the first time his father tried talking to him at a waterfall, was not very believable.
Inconsistent details: I think the level of the sound that attracts the monsters is fairly well handled. The can run on sand, the can breathe indoors. That she breathes loudly maybe just comes down to the fact that we, the audience, listen much more carefully to the sound mix in this film than in any other film.
The ending: I liked it. They have finally found a way to stop the monsters. She now has a way to avenge her husband and protect her children. She and her children together will survive this, even though the father is dead. I can believe that satisfaction in her face. And nice that we didn’t get served an action-packed slaughter scene, followed by the reduced family walking into the sunset heading for a new life. Ending here is right.

Jesus Christ, did the person who wrote this have a stroke while watching this? Every. Single. One. Of these supposedly damning points is either easily explained or not a plot hole by definition. What does it take for one to write for “Film Daily?” I am all for well-reasoned critiques of any movie, but this is just a poor effort.

THANK YOU! I completely agree. Also very entertaining, well-written piece.

amen, sister. while it was entertaining to see the audience play along and play a part in the silence the movie required, it felt cheap that it had to revert to standard jump scares and dumb protaganists/monsters for its audience thrills. Hopefully we’ll get a smarter movie using the same audience silent participation technique at some point – one whose obvious premise/survival flaws doesn’t start pulling you out of the film with too many questions in the first 15 minutes or cheat the audience at the end. loose nail was the scariest thing in the film and good PSA for tetanus shot.

hey dad, if we can make more noise near the stream where we catch fish and scream next to the waterfall, how about we move the family someplace safe like here instead of staying at that silent scary-ass farm with the basement with the loose nails and flooding problems? or maybe just constantly play a bunch of loud cover music from some balloons since these monsters are so pathetically one-dimensional?

I’ll add another plot hole. The director said the aliens arrived on a meteor. Really? These aliens would have had to somehow accidently end up on the meteor (A blind species wouldn’t even understand that the universe even existed). Then they would have had to survive on this meteor for countless millennia. After all, they would be coming from somewhere VERY far away. Interesting they could do this without food or air or heat. Then to top it off, coming through the atmosphere at well over 25,000 mph would have ruined a perfectly nice interstellar journey. Oh, and as an aside, did anyone else notice that they also seemed to have to sense of smell? I still enjoyed the movie however ?

Guns: One of the reasons guns didn’t work well was the aliens had a thick exoskeleton that seemed almost steel like in it’s rigidity. Once the hearing aid feedback loop began it opened up their armor on their head, and that’s when Emily Blunt’s character took the shot, similar to exposing an enemies weakness in a video game, if you will.

It is just a movie!! Why does it have to be super realistic like scientist didnt find earlier a way to kill them bla bla etc. There is a monster for god’s sake, are you also going to say we don’t have monsters on Earth or maybe even Earth is flat? Gosh. Horrible post. Respect the idea behind a nice movie, which is an interesting idea and had never been tried before. You dont have to hate everything.

I assume you make a lot of noise during sex then. Anyway, the movie didn’t make any sense. For blind creatures to move that was they need to be able to sense their environment somehow, like echolocation. And they would probably have a strong sense of smell. And since John Krasinski has admitted they are actually aliens from another planet, they should also be intelligent. They should be able to use acoustic sonar to find out where people live based on their activity and scent, and then simply wait for the right moment.

So, they come from another planet (don’t ask how they were able to build spaceships, and then navigate through space, without proper hands or eyes) and once they arrive, they decide to run around all over the planet killing humans and animals. Completely naked. If humans should ever land on an alien planet with an intelligent civilization, would we dress naked and start running around with knives and axes to kill billions of aliens all over their planet?

But that’s assuming they were able to come her all by them selves by building spaceships. The other alternative is that they came here on an asteroid or something. Just one, because the odds of more than one extrasolar object entering our solar system and land on earth at the same time is less than microscopic. And the only chance for aliens to survive would be in the form of eggs somehow able to survive the journey through space, the hot journey through the atmosphere, the landing and the new ecosystem.

1. Why not have speaker system set up in the field, hooked to some soundtrack in the basement? So every time a monster gets in the house, blast some music to keep them away. They did have cameras and lights setup. Or record the water fall sound and play that on loop.
2. Inconsistency. If other monsters are attracted by the gun sound. how come other monsters don’t come when one of the monsters is throwing things around or hitting objects and making noises?
3. Are the monsters territorial? How come only one monster comes after hearing a noise? But not until gun is fired, multiple come.
There were too many errors in the film.

did you say that, under these circumstances, it was selfish and dumb to have a child? well, i might soften it up with the “dumb” stuff but… it is ALWAYS selfish to have a child, always… how could it be otherwise? the child doesn’t exist until it does… who else’s needs/wants can your be serving but your own?

Krasinski’s self sacrificial scream near the end was hilarious. He sounded like a Muppet.

I’ve just gotten around to watching this movie during the 2020 “covid-19 quarantine.” (Similar to the movie plot with the exception that we are facing something we cannot see, but we can still make noise! Very prescient of John Krasinsky and the other writers…especially with the movie taking place in 2020, as evidenced when they show his sons cross at the bridge where he died: 1996-2020)

Another big glaring issue that bothered me was when/how did they silently plant the corn in those beautiful straight rows? Since they were on day 400+, it definitely wasn’t a pre-creature crop (not to mention the whole harvesting and clearing the fields from the previous season to be able to plant the current corn…?) And the creatures were definitely around then because their son died on day 89 so it can’t be explained by something like they moved to a remote area, did all this stuff, then the creatures eventually made their way there after the corn was planted.

And it is hard to believe that Lee painted the spots on the stairs where it was safe to step, but neglected to remove a dangerous nail smack in the middle of one of the safe spots? hmmmm

Finally, where did all the sand come from that Lee used to quiet their walks? I didn’t see a beach at the river.

Overall I still enjoyed the movie, it was definitely a new twist on traditional horror films. But the freakiest thing is the parallels now to the whole covid-19 “hysteria.” Eerie for sure!

suspension of disbelief : the movie
You can’t create a supposed invicible creature and then give it such a big weakness. Everybody would have understood how to kill those ugly “spider monkeys” rip offs from dark souls 2 in a minute.
I will not parrot all the previous good point brought by the other posters, as english is not my first language and i don’t want to anger Thor with my bad grammar and punctuation, but overall this movie was a joke. A joke because it breaks the suspension of disbelief from the very first minutes of the movie, and ruin the rest of the flick for the audience with half a brain. If you watched a couple other sci-fi films on the same subject, you cannot like this movie, you cannot call it good or even average. It’s just plain bad and i’m glad i streamwatched it.

Totally agree. They all behaved like fools. Surpinsingly cheap jump scares. Clichés (like the infighting when total unison is absolutely necessary). Very scatterbrain planning with people running around all over the place and the nail was still there even when the kids went down the stairs – weird. A solid rock crusher or oversized meatgrinder would’ve done the trick – set it up outside and let it do the job – all aliens will pop up instantly to check it out and voila – end up pulverized one by one.

This movie is so bad how come shooting a gun is way more dangerous than shooting some rockets

I initially liked this movie as it was doing different to the normal dribble …
However researching the beginning when the four year old dies I am annoyed. In light of the monsters….why would you have a deaf child walking and then the four year at the end of the line. Where were the parents??? Ok it’s in fantasy land but more of the Hollywood dribble we can’t get away from!

I have near read anything by this author before, but after the review of this god-awful movie, I will be looking for more of her work.

Couldn’t be more in agreement. The plot holes in this thing made it absolutely maddening to watch. In fact, I couldn’t, I got halfway through then simply stopped.

Terrible, awful, movie.