I know it has been a few weeks since I’ve written. I guess I’ve failed to prove to the blogosphere that I can blog on a regular basis…oh darn. The truth is I’ve been busy working on a few non-fiction freelancing jobs, so I put a temporary hold on my blog and novel. However, after meeting two deadlines this week, my husband and I decided to see the movie A Quiet Place this weekend. A Quiet Place is a movie about a family’s survival in a post-apocalyptic world that is overrun by blind creatures who attack anything that makes a sound. One of my favorite things to do while watching horror movies is to put myself in the shoes of the protagonist and assess whether I would survive. This post is a snapshot of some of the silly things that flew through my mind as I watched the movie.
Before we begin, let me just say that I enjoyed this movie. I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it and was riveted the entire time. The premise, while not entirely logical, was an interesting one. And hey, it’s not a remake, so bonus points for that! Now that movies are typically two to three house long, and the viewer wonders if they’re going to develop DVT, the pacing of A Quiet Place was quite comfortable at 90 minutes. It featured two fine actors, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, who may have looked as if they had been plucked out of an L.L. Bean catalogue, but their acting chops definitely elevated the story. Emily Blunt could sit on a stool, twidling her thumbs for the entire movie and I would still love her; even though her labor scenes made me feel even more disturbed about the painful miracle of childbirth. And of course, it featured all the things we love about horror: the ultra-fast, slimy monsters that look like Venus fly traps with legs; the ability to make something mundane, like walking around your house making noise, deadly; and of course blaringly obvious mistakes made by the main characters.
With that being said, I have three major takeaways from this movie that I hope will help you if you’re ever in A Quiet Place:
- In the world of A Quiet Place any kind of bodily function would probably get you killed.
Most of us lack the disciplined, monk-like control the characters in A Quiet Place have over their bodies, especially their sphincters. Imagine coming home after a long day and not being able to let loose and relax. You know what I’m talking about. No farting, no audible shitting and no burping. In A Quiet Place you would have to spend everyday clinching your butthole like you do during a first or second date. Who wants to live in a world like that? Better hold onto your butt until you can get to that roaring river, so that you can let your bowels loose in an epically loud poop. Do you start to sneeze once the spring flowers bloom? Forget it, you’re dead. Have a cough? Dead. Snore? Dead. Brush your teeth a little too loudly? Dead. Chew your food too loudly? Dead. Slurp your soup? Dead. I don’t think it would have been the noisy spaceship toy that would have caused the creatures to nab the first victim (I don’t really consider this to be a spoiler, by the way, because the trailer basically shows this character’s death) in A Quiet Place; most likely the creatures would have heard all of the characters farting, shitting, snoring or sneezing long before the little boy picked up the toy.
2) There’s no way kids would survive.
I’m not a parent, but I can imagine that any parent who watched this movie had a little chuckle. If you’ve ever babysat a child for more than twenty minutes, you know they’re loud as fuck. They cry, they whine, they cough, they fall on the floor, they drop things, they smash into things, they break things, etc. Kids under the age of twelve explore all of the infinite noise making combinations on the daily, so there’s absolutely no way any child would be able to survive the silent world of A Quiet Place.
(Midway Random Thought: I would love for the Chappelle Show to come back and do a A Quiet Place spoof where Chappelle’s Lil John character follows the protagonist’s family around yelling “WHHAAAAT?” End Random Thought. )
3) Birth control is key in any post-apocalyptic world
Ok, ladies and gentlemen. Remember before modern medicine, how childbirth could kill you? Well if the apocalypse happens and you don’t have access to doctors and hospitals, then there’s a good chance you or your baby will die. So for the love of god, if you were lucky enough to receive some form of sex ed. in middle school, now’s a good time to use that knowledge. What bothered me about Emily Blunt and John Krasinski’s characters in A Quiet Place, is they got pregnant AFTER the apocalypse happened. Not only that, they still thought it was a good idea to have un-protected sex even after seeing their youngest son demolished by the creatures. If that’s not reason enough to wrap your junk up, then I don’t know what is. And don’t give me that crap about the condom breaking. We all know that doesn’t happen. Perhaps now would be a great time to take a few notes from your slutty classmate in your high school freshmen class, who considered herself to be a virgin even though she blew every guy at church camp. Or maybe now would be a great time to become asexual. Whatever you do, don’t have unprotected sex in the apocalypse. And don’t let some fool try to convince you of having a child to reinstate hope for the survival of the human race. A’int nobody got time for a screaming baby in the apocalypse. Let the rich people who live in the underground bunkers figure that out.
So there you have it. If you ever find yourself in a post-apocalyptic world where you can’t make any noise, whatever you do, don’t fart, don’t have kids and don’t have kids. Simple as that. But until that happens be as loud as you want and create as many little spawn as you want to.
Moody Newts Blog 