Don't Breathe 2 (2021) - Movie Review

2016’s Don’t Breathe was a great movie as is when it first came out, but over the last five years, it’s also proven to be quite influential, spawning its own mini-wave of sensory-driven horror fare like Hush, The Silence, and the Quiet Place series. And looking back on it, it really is at a level of pure genre thrills and laser-focused film craft that was bound to make other filmmakers and studios take notice. So, when I found out about a sequel to that same film, I was certainly interested to see how they could build on that kind of suffocating sonic atmosphere. I… can’t say I was expecting what we got.

A Quiet Place Part II (2021) - Movie Review

In most circumstances, a sequel that’s just more of the same that made the original what it is can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it serves as one of the only conditions when the advice of Mike Love is a good thing to adhere to ("don’t fuck with the formula"), making sure that what worked last time isn’t tampered with. But on the other hand, if a continuation is going to exist in the first place, there needs to be something new added to the mix, if only to justify the exercise. And with A Quiet Place Part II finally making it to theatres, it feels like a good middle ground between those two ideals, resulting in a film where it being similar to what came before is far from a bad thing.

The Silence (2019) - Movie Review

When he was in the process of making A Quiet Place, director John Krasinski insisted on casting deaf actress Millicent Simmonds to play the role of a deaf person. Among other reasons, one of his main ones for doing so was, by having someone on-set who actually knew what it was like to live as a deaf person, he and by extension the production at large would gain a better understanding of it and how to portray it. As a result, Simmonds’ knowledge not only helped shape what the film would eventually become, but also helped highlight just how fucking brilliant her performance was all on its own. I bring all of this up because, if that production is an example of the right way to go about such things, The Silence is an example of the wrong way to do it.