“A Quiet Place: Day One”

Rating: 9/10

Director and Writer: Michael Sarnoski

Story by: John Krasinski and Michael Sarnoski

Based on characters created by: Bryan Woods and Scott Beck

Style: Horror

Trailer: youtube.com/watch?v=YPY7J-flzE8

Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Review by Mike Szymanski

OK, let the Oscar campaign begin right now for Lupita Nyong’o for her work in “A Quiet Place: Day One.”

A lot of critics thought she was snubbed for her role as the tough mom in Jordan Peele’s “Us.” She has such subtlety and nuance in all her roles, which is why she won the Academy Award a decade ago for her Supporting Actress in “12 Years a Slave” (arguably a horror movie, too).

But in this movie, Lupita creates beautiful moments while the world is falling apart around her. Whether it’s running against the flow of a fleeing crowd, or simply observing herself in a mirror, she is exquisite, tough and tender in every scene.

Now, don’t go saying an actress can’t win an Academy Award for a horror movie. Ruth Gordon won for “Rosemary’s Baby,” and so has Natalie Portman in “Black Swan,” Kathy Bates in “Misery,” Jodie Foster in “The Silence of the Lambs.” And, actress nominations were earned for both mom and daughter in both “The Exorcist” and “Carrie” (the originals), also Janet Leigh in “Psycho” and Bette Davis for “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”

She is amazing, she should be nominated. Let the campaign begin.

We first meet Lupita’s character Samira in a hospice care facility where she is dying of cancer. She is angry. She reads a poem at group therapy talking about how everything there is shit, including her fellow patients around her. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic, but some of us chuckled, including one of the patients she directed her vitriol toward in her group therapy.

Samira is coaxed out into the world from the hospital only if they agree to stop for pizza. Her nurse (played by the handsome Alex Wolff), brings her and other patients to a marionette show, and her search for pizza at a place called Patsy’s becomes a quest and a metaphor for her survival.

Such tender moment happen in a world that suddenly becomes apocalyptic. The delicate puppeteer has his puppet blow up a balloon and then seemingly float away, in a light breezy way as if nothing bad can ever happen.

But it does. Some jittery things seem to be happening in the air, and tensions grow in the city.

Boom. Some horrifying creatures are invading from the skies. Anyone who is offering warning, or help, or makes a sound, gets swept away into oblivion by the creatures.

It’s hard not to mention, but every step of the way that we’ve seen Samira, we also see her cat Frodo. He’s sitting on her lap during group therapy, walking on a leash through the city and being rather mellow for a cat in the middle of all this chaos.

For those who have followed the first two movies, some rules are already known about these invading aliens. They cannot see, only hear, and that’s when they attack. They don’t like water, and they are rather relentless.

While in the theater we see actor Djimon Hounsou (a double Oscar nominee for “Blood Diamond” and “In America”), but wait, didn’t we see him at the end of “A Quiet Place 2”? We sure did, he was the Man on the Island that greeted people who were being saved at the end of that movie. Now, we know him as Henri, with a son who is taken to her cat Frodo.

But remember, this is a prequel, and the whole John Krasinski family isn’t even mentioned in this. They were from a tiny town in middle American anyway. Krasinski wrote and directed the first two and his real-life wife Emily Blunt, and a real-life deaf actress Millie Simmonds were break-outs in those films.

So, this is the beginning, where no one knew the rules. A cat tinkling a bell could bring an onslaught of creatures, but you can talk to children hiding behind the sprinkling of a water fountain.

It’s interesting that Joseph Quinn (as Eric, who literally pops up out of the water from a subway) doesn’t come in until well into the movie, yet is an integral part of the film. Quinn played Eddie Munson in the fourth season of “Stranger Things” and became a much beloved character.

He is much beloved here, too, when he sees Frodo the cat who leads him to Samira. He keeps following them despite her wishes to be left alone.

We find out why the pizza run is such an important goal for Samira, and yes there are some cheap typical horror movie scares in this.

The music is haunting, and appropriate, done by Alexis Grapsas who worked with this director before in an odd film with Nic Cage called “Pig.”

Not to get all box-office-geek about this, but the first movie on a budget of $17 million made a surprise $50 million in its first week. The second one with a $58 million budget opened to a $47 million box office and made its money back worldwide in the first weekend.

This movie cost $67 million to produce, and with domestic estimates of it bringing in $59 million, there’s not a doubt that the movie can make its money back, maybe in the first weekend!

The franchise has lots of places to go, and apparently it is catching on, especially with great actors and unpredictable story lines.

By the way, take a closer look at the poster for this movie. Over Lupita’s right shoulder you can see a creature’s claws and his head slightly peeking over a building. In all the dozens of times I’ve seen that poster around town, I never noticed it until I saw it on the big screen.

Watch Lupita’s feelings about cats, and how they changed during the making of the movie. It’s very funny:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwLf3EuQTZ4

The cat is played by two cats Nico and Schnitzel, and I think I could tell the difference between the two of them. Nevertheless, the cat looked like it actually smiled in a few spots and seems to react well to the dialogue. This cat has more than nine lives, and every time I thought the cat was a goner for good, he popped back up.

So, yes, this should launch a campaign for Lupita Nyong’o’s fantastic acting in this horror movie. It really shouldn’t be a stretch.

The next steps to figure out how to get a nomination for the cat!

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