13 year old Ally lives a normal teenager life, except that a few years ago she was in a bad car crash and became deaf. On the nightly news, her family sees that scientists discovered a new species in a cave. Unfortunately that species is now on the loose killing everyone and everything in it's path, and it's headed right towards their town. The news advises everyone to stay inside to remain safe.
The family decides the best thing would be to get out of the city since the creatures, which are being called vesps, are going to populated areas. But they don't consider that other people might want to get out of the city as well - until they end up in a traffic jam. So they decide to off road it which proves to be a second bad decision when their friend rolls his SUV down a hill and gets trapped inside. Then the vesps show up and they have even bigger problems.
While hiding in their SUV trying to figure out how to get away, they discover that the vesps are blind and drawn to sound. So they leave their car and tiptoe off, ending up at a house in the country surrounded by a security fence. A series of bad decisions leads to the home owners death and the family sitting safely inside the house.
When one of the family gets an injury that needs antibiotics, Ally and her father head into town and stumble upon a creepy preacher with no tongue. Turns out he's got some kind of cult and he'd like them to join. They take a hard pass, but you just know this creeper is going to show up again and be all sorts of trouble.
So we've got killer creatures, a creepy preacher with a cult, and a family that doesn't make good decisions. This is not going to go well.
This is a lot like A Quiet Place, except that movie was effectively done while this one isn't that interesting. This has lots of scenes where you watch people sign, whereas in A Quiet Place they are able to convey what is going on with a look or convey an emotion without words. It's much more effective.
There's no real feeling for how much time has passed in this movie. Is it one day? One week? One month? And if it's any of those, how has a preacher had time to start a doomsday cult? And why would anyone join a newly formed cult that it was a good idea to cut out their own tongues and look for teenage girls to repopulate the Earth? It seems like you'd have to build up to that after at least a year of hardship and desperation.
This is like a combination of A Quiet Place and Birdbox. At one point, we see a child in an SUV with a piece of duct tape over his mouth so he won't make a sound. As my friend said, "Bird box your dumb mouth."
When they were talking about how they had to be quiet, Ally says she can help them because, "I know how to live in silence." No, no you don't. You live in silence, but that is not the same as knowing how to be silent. You can't hear. You have no idea if you're noisy. You can drop a frying pan and you'll still be living in silence, where everyone else will be saying, what the hell was that loud clanging sound? She also can't gauge the level of her own voice.
And why does no one seem to know how to shut off a cell phone? People, please. Get a grip.
If you're going to watch one movie about being silent, definitely choose A Quiet Place.
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