Netflix
The Silence is a new Netflix original film that is based on the book by the same name written by Tim Lebbon. This story is like last year’s horror film A Quiet Place directed by John Krasinski, which featured monsters who hunt their human prey by sound. Ally Andrews, a 16-year-old girl who lost her hearing at the age of 13, and her family seek refuge in a remote haven while trying to survive. I know the book came out first, but A Quiet Place was so successful in creating this kind of movie, that it was hard not to compare The Silence to that movie. There are a lot of similarities between the two which made it hard to enjoy this film because I felt like I saw it last year. Birdbox was also very similar to A Quiet Place, but in a different way that the creatures hunt their prey.
The Silence does nothing to make it stand out from A Quiet Place. When crafting a movie like this that has already been made, it is up to the writers and director to make sure it stands out in some way. Nothing about The Silence felt original. From the characters to the story, I felt like I already saw this movie. I knew going into The Silence that I may get something like A Quiet Place, but I was hoping for something to make it different. I was disappointed in the approach for the film because a lot of the editing and framework was bad. The editing was choppy for a lot of the action scenes, which never put me into the moment. There could have been a lot of suspense throughout the movie, but it relied heavily on edits.
I thought the design for the creatures was intimidating but with how the they were presented; I was never able to feel their full potential. They looked just like bats, but more vicious, which could have been cool but they never had the chance to be something horrific. They also attempted to provide a backstory as to where these creatures came from, but it was so brief that it never really mattered.
There are some decent things about this movie and that mostly has to do with the actors and actresses involved in the movie. Ally Anderson is played by Kiernan Shipka, who has impressed me as Sabrina the Teenage Witch in the Netflix original show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Her father is played by Stanley Tucci, who is always fun to watch even if he is giving a bad performance in a Transformers movie. Both as well as the rest of their family, did a fine job of remaining quiet in key moments. They also seemed legitimately scared of the creatures which gave off the idea that the creatures could cause a lot of harm to the world.
The Silence was an unoriginal film that was overwhelming and not exciting at all. The cast is the only decent thing about this movie and even then it’s still not that great. The Silence borrowed a little too much from A Quiet Place in how the film is shot. I tried so hard to shake that feeling during the movie, but it wasn’t successful and I was bored throughout.
The Silence has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes and is rated TV-14.
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