2018’s A Quiet Place was such a surprise success, writer/director John Krasinski now has his own franchise. A Quiet Place Part II made a pandemic record-breaking 48 million dollars at the box office last weekend, which means A Quiet Place Part III is surely the subject of conversations over at Paramount. Audiences will have to wait a while for the third installment in a potential trilogy to become a reality. Thankfully, there’s plenty to fill the silence until that time comes.
Krasinski’s films work so well because they draw inspiration from some of the genre’s best and most recognizable elements. A Quiet Place Part II is part monster movie, part alien invasion, part high concept horror, part intense psychological thriller, with a dash of family drama. These eight movies explore similar subject matter and themes and will keep viewers hushed in anticipation.
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Cloverfield
Cloverfield, which spawned its own franchise, shares so much in common with A Quiet Place that writers reportedly discussed the idea of making them part of the same cinematic universe. With its constrained setting, A Quiet Place echoes 10 Cloverfield Lane. However, the sequel, which expands the film’s world and lore, feels more like A Quiet Place. Produced by J.J. Abrams, this found-footage thriller also deals with monstrous aliens invading Earth and making short work of humans. When Rob (Michael Stahl-David) accepts a job in Japan, his friends and family throw him a going-away party that’s promptly interrupted by chaos and destruction. What had been a bittersweet occasion turns into the ultimate test of survival. The friend who had been collecting video well-wishes keeps the cameras rolling to document what looks to be the end of civilization as they know it.
Children of Men
There are no monsters in Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar-nominated 2006 action-thriller, Children of Men. Or if there are, they’re humans, who have mismanaged their resources and planet so severely, society collapsed. However, there is just as harrowing a journey involving a newborn baby. Children of Men takes place 18 years into an apocalypse, during which humanity has been rendered infertile. Theo (Clive Owen), a jaded civil servant, is enlisted by his activist ex-wife to protect Kee, a refugee who also happens to be the only pregnant woman in the world. That makes her valuable cargo and puts a target on their backs. Theo and Kee have to decide whether to trust each other and every desperate group of people they encounter as they make their way to a rescue ship called the Tomorrow.
Attack the Block
As people have discovered over the past year and few months, a sense of humor doesn’t completely recede in times of crisis. That’s what makes 2011’s Attack the Block so refreshing. Aliens begin their attempted conquest of Earth on Guy Fawkes Night in a rough part of London. Moses (John Boyega in his debut) and his bunch of troublemaker friends track one down and kill it. Typically, the human protagonists in these types of movies start out scared and slowly gain confidence. However, Moses and his low-level criminal companions are eager to fight and maybe too self-assured. Attack the Block has fun with that and other tropes, making it an early example of horror-comedy as social commentary.
Bird Box
Netflix’s 2018 hit, Bird Box, trades A Quiet Place’s sound for sight. In this version of a global calamity, otherworldly beings have mysteriously appeared on Earth, and a mere glance their way causes humans to commit suicide. Malorie (Sandra Bullock) is pregnant when the phenomenon begins and people — including her sister — start killing themselves en masse. She eventually makes it to a safe house, but as is always the case in horror, survival isn’t as simple as getting from point A to point B. There are fraught supply runs, encounters with suspicious strangers and sacrifices made along the way.
Signs
The appeal of A Quiet Place‘s particular brand of horror is the extreme realism, especially within a domestic setting. M. Night Shyamalan‘s 2002 crowd pleaser, Signs, accomplishes much the same thing, adding some comedy for good measure. When crop circles start popping up in his Pennsylvania cornfield, Graham (Mel Gibson) thinks they’re probably the work of pranksters or delinquents. Others, including his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), start to believe rumors about alien visitors. In this fictional world, the conspiracists are right. Twists that explain everything are Shyamalan’s thing, so the audience is waiting for one throughout. While the eventual reveal doesn’t hold a candle to The Sixth Sense, the family’s ordeal is just as compelling.
Annihilation
Suppose tough women like Emily Blunt’s Evelyn Abbott going up against aliens is your thing. In that case, Alex Garland’s 2018 sci-fi horror film, Annihilation, does better by delivering not one but five strong female protagonists. Lena (Natalie Portman), an army veteran and cellular biology professor, leads a team of various experts (that also includes Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez and Jennifer Jason Leigh) into an anomaly called “the Shimmer.” The amorphous threat began when a meteoroid crashed on the planet’s surface. It’s been steadily growing and distorting the biological makeup of everything in its path. Annihilation is a deeply strange and existential take on the invasion-of-Earth subgenre, with out-of-nowhere scares and a creeping sense of dread.
The Host
Before Bong Joon-ho became an international household name with Parasite, he made this acclaimed 2006 horror film. The Host involves a monster who carries a deadly virus and a subplot about military and government intrigue. For years, fish have been dying, and there have been sightings of a creature in the water. Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is working at his snack cart near a river when the monster rears its head and makes off with his daughter. It won’t easily be brought down, and the forces that should be helping Gang-du seem to be doing everything they can to get in his way. The Host avoids gimmicks and unnecessary escalation, making its story all the more plausible and Bong’s accomplishment all the more impressive.
The Silence
If viewers want to replicate the experience (if not quite the quality) of A Quiet Place or its sequel, Netflix has a title in its enormous catalog that will seem very familiar. In The Silence, a deaf girl’s (Kiernan Shipka) family must flee monsters that are attracted to sound. This time, the monsters aren’t aliens; they’re prehistoric-looking creatures called “vesps” released from a mine, and they’re multiplying quickly. Though it was accused of copying A Quiet Place, The Silence is a different-enough kind of survival movie, taking place in the immediate aftermath and involving the religious cult that arises amid death and despair.
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