A Quiet Place Part II (2021) review by Hannah Pooley

A Quiet Place Part II is directed by John Krasinski, and is the sequel to surprise hit A Quiet Place (2018), with events taking place right where we left off. You may know Krasinski as Jim from the US Office – this is his second film as director. Krasinski's real life wife, Emily Blunt, is back in front of the camera as Evelyn Abbot who is determined to find a new home for her children, including a newly born baby, after battling horrifying alien creatures that have taken over the world.  The monsters are blind, but are hypersensitive to sound, hence why there are not many humans left. Carrying a baby around is definitely not for the faint hearted in this world. As their farm burns to the ground, they must seek the help of other survivors to find some form of safety. After many delays due to the global pandemic, a Quiet Place Part II is FINALLY now showing in cinemas!

It feels so good to be back in the cinema after such a long time. Just like our real world went downhill thanks to Covid-19, the world that the Abbots are in is not much better! They cannot even make any sound, as the smallest murmur will have a pack of vicious aliens on them, who will most definitely rip them to shreds. With their home in ruins, and (spoiler alert) having just lost their father Lee, who sacrificed his life to save his two eldest children, Reagan (Millicent Symonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe), the clan must find somewhere to shelter. They have made a box to hide the new-born child in, complete with an oxygen supply so that the noise can be kept to the bare minimum.

After yet another near miss with the creatures, the family come across old friend Emmett, (Cillian Murphy) who is living in an old factory complete with shelter, where he will protect them from an unwanted alien. However, the oxygen supply inside is minimal. Emmett is a truly broken man after losing his wife to illness, and his kids, we must assume, to the monsters. The Abbott kids are restless. Marcus gets caught in a bear trap (oh that did not look fun) but especially Reagan, who picks up on the signal of a song on the radio, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, and she is determined to find the source and sets out on a secret mission to find more survivors. Distraught, Evelyn also heads out to get more oxygen for the baby, but at what cost, and will they find the answers they want?

One of the strongest elements of the film are the performances. Blunt as ever, is very believable and has been able to flesh out her role as Evelyn even more in this sequel. She is not only a badass mother, but also vulnerable, and ultimately flawed. It’s clear that she feels responsible for the loss of her husband and son. Cillian Murphy is a welcomed addition to the cast, and he was given a lot more to work with then I expected. He is great at adding grit to the character (Tommy Shelby for one) and adds a hint of melancholy. When the story splits out and Emmet is with Reagan, he must carry a large amount of the weight, and their arc would not have been as effective without his undeniable believability. The scenes when they arrive at the island are the most gripping of the film, where it goes from peaceful to sheer chaos at a disturbing rate. Millicent Symonds as Reagan is also deaf in real life and has grown as an actor. The daughter Reagan has become the lead essentially and she really stepped up, most notably when she goes it alone out in the wilderness and cannot hear the impending doom behind her!

Part II is by all accounts a good horror film, or perhaps it should be a ‘creature feature’? We see more of the aliens this time around, however the pacing doesn’t work as well as the first outing. It doesn’t feel as immediate, visceral or involving as the last one – it is hard to pin down why this is, but I feel it may lie in the fact it does feel more generic, with some silly jump scares thrown in and an insistence to again split the family up. 

For the core Abbot family, as an audience it feels that, no matter what happens they will almost definitely live to see another day, which unfortunately takes a fair bit of the terror and suspense out of the movie. One gaping plot hole that cannot be ignored is that at the end the first film, Evelyn and Regan are able to defeat one of the aliens with the screaming feedback from Reagan’s hearing aid, disarming it and then shooting it. All good, right? Well, the last moments show the CCTV footage around the farm and there are at least half a dozen aliens heading for them, then cut to black. In Part II these aliens in question are nowhere to be seen…no massacre! It seems very odd to remove that element, perhaps the film makers were just not expecting to make a second, but at least please explain how this happened?

The personal highlight for me in A Quiet Place II was the opening sequence. Right from the get-go we start off in a flashback. Here we see the family at a kid’s baseball game, cheering on Marcus as he heads up to bat. It is all happy families, and light – not something we have seen so far in the Quiet Place universe – there are even people smiling, cheering, and making a hell of a lot of noise! Then suddenly, something comes hurtling down to earth, a cloud made of smoke and fire. Uneasy and confused, all the parents and their children head to their cars for safety. The Abbot family are split up (again), Reagan with Lee as they head to their car in the high street and Marcus and Beau with Evelyn as they try to reach their car – what follows is a nerve shredding sequence as the aliens make themselves known and the family must hide or drive to get out of their path. Emily Blunt did her own stunt driving for this scene, so when you see a huge bus heading towards her at 45mph…that is real! What an opener for a film – and clever to do a flashback to breakup the two films. The tension was unbearable and absolutely gripping at the same time. It gives the rest of the film an even sadder tone, as we see how content the family were before their world is torn apart.

A Quiet Place Part II really does feel like a second chapter, a continuation of the first film. Surely Krasinski is already formulating a third and (hopefully) final sequel? Perhaps where the Abbott family can sit and breathe for more than 30 seconds… their anxiety must be unbearable at this point. John Krasinksi has again curated an enjoyable, tense sequel film, which is no easy task. The cast are all very strong and they feel like an authentic family, full of unspeakable grief. And behind the camera too, the precise direction, the cinematography and the score, all accumulate to make another very tense, alien horror film. Even if it doesn’t feel as original or spine chilling as its predecessor, Part II is a worthy horror follow-up with that stunning and gut-wrenching opening sequence depicting the sheer carnage when the aliens first arrive on earth. This alone is worth the cost of a cinema ticket.

8/10