A Quiet Place, a horror film currently second in the U.S box office (only beaten by that Giant Gorilla movie starring the ex-wrestler), has managed to piss off the kinds of people I feel sure Right Mind’s readers would be quite happy were pissed off.
The setting of the film is idyllic – rural America; corn fields, woods, waterfalls, in the middle of it all, a tight loving nuclear family and most of all, sweet, sweet silence. No tits babbling non-stop into their phones, or worse, hands free, letting the wider universe know vital information like what they’re having for dinner. No Neanderthals cruising down the street with their car stereos turned up to 11. Bliss I’d say. Only downside being the large carnivorous monsters stalking the countryside zeroing in on any sound louder than a mouse fart. Hence the need for silence.
The concept of a film built around silence could have been nothing but an audience baiting gimmick. Fortunately, director, co-writer and star, John Krasinski develops the premise fully – details such as the characters going barefoot and walking on sand to avoid footsteps, abound. He also understands that all the high concepts and gore "don’t a scary movie make" without the audience giving a monkey’s as to what happens to the characters. And we do. The film is brilliantly acted, paced, and scored.
So what’s got all the leftist type’s panties in a bunch? The film consciously or not, fails to follow the progressive agenda, and therefore can be seen as conservative friendly. Its pro-family. The family unit is not mocked as an outmoded nightmare of frustration and acrimony but depicted as a source of strength. There are obvious gender roles. The father (played by Krasinski himself) is a protector/provider. We see him hunting and building things. The mother (Emily Blunt) is shown doing the washing. Jeez! Doesn’t she know about feminism? It’s Pro-life. The mother falls pregnant and even given their trying circumstances (noisy baby, homicidal noise attracted monsters) it’s considered a good thing! Outrageous! It portrays Christians in a positive light. There is a short scene where the family hold hands and pray. Isn’t it something to have the religion foundational to western civilization not mocked or belittled in a Hollywood film, but suggestive of strength and togetherness? It is also in its final moments pro-gun, but only in the sense of a gun being a pretty good thing to have around when confronting something that looks like the unholy offspring of a Xenomorph and the creature from the black lagoon. What do you these lefties expect them to do? Bore it into submission with readings from Das Kapital?
But don’t see it just because it’s "conservative friendly". That would be doing what poo-faced progressives do when they sit through nine hour documentaries on lesbian trade unionists in Brazil; putting politics before entertainment. See it because it’s an inventive, emotionally engaging, two-changes-of underwear horror movie.