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The Greatest Accomplishment of ‘A Quiet Place’ is Getting Audiences to STFU

Published

8 years ago

on

One of the best horror movies in years is also one of the best theatrical experiences.

Since movies are both my passion and my job, I go to the movies pretty often. And most of the time, it’s horror movies that I’m paying to see up on the big screen. Unfortunately, there’s a big time downside of supporting horror in theaters, and it’s got nothing to do with the movies themselves. Rather, it has everything to do with the crowds.

Out of all the different types of movies, I’ve found horror movie audiences to be the most disruptive when the lights go out. This is particularly the case when it comes to PG-13 horror movies, which allow anyone 13 or older to buy a ticket. Asking teenagers to sit quietly for upwards of two hours, especially in the era of smart phones, is asking a lot, but it’s not just the teenagers who often chat (and even selfie) their way through movies. The art of being quiet at the movies, sitting still and chewing with your mouth closed, well, it’s a dying one. And all it takes is *one* bad apple to spoil the experience.

From the guy who’s trying to impress his date by showing her that he’s smarter than the movie characters, as well as far too brave and masculine to ever actually be scared, to the woman who not only kept her phone on but has no qualms about answering it during the movie, the theatrical experience has largely been soured over the years. It’s gotten to the point, honestly, where my excitement about going to the movies has been overshadowed by the anxiety I feel about the crowd I’m going to be seated with.

(The closest Alamo Drafthouse is two hours away, so it’s not a viable option for me.)

So you can imagine the dread I felt, despite my excitement to see the movie, when I purchased my ticket to see A Quiet Place, a PG-13 horror movie. Given the plot, I had assumed that a large portion of the movie was completely silent, and my fear was that the silence would be shattered by the rustling of candy wrappers, the chewing of popcorn, and the loud talking of an audience surely unable to sit in complete silence for 90 minutes. My fears increased tenfold when my local theater was PACKED.

But as the lights lowered and the endless trailers finally ended, something incredible and highly unexpected happened. Suddenly, the entire room went silent. You could’ve heard a pin drop and you probably could’ve even heard a mouse fart (and yes, mice do fart). The whole room, at least 75% filled up by people of all ages, became like a library. And if one person ate even one kernel of popcorn during the movie, I sure as hell didn’t hear it.

For years, I have had almost nothing but bad experiences at the movies, many of those at the very same theater I found myself in last night, but my experience with A Quiet Place was quite unlike the rest. It was as if everyone was obeying the rules the characters in the movie itself were forced to abide by in order to stay alive, and it’s clear to me that this was very much by design on the part of director John Krasinski. He may have recently admitted that he’s not a big horror fan, but Krasinski proves with A Quiet Place that he sure as hell knows how to scare an audience. The film is brilliantly orchestrated from shocking start to pitch perfect final shot; Krasinski truly holds you in the palm of his hands for 90 minutes, almost forcing you to shut up and pay attention.

There is very little dialogue throughout A Quiet Place, with the unique concept for the film allowing Krasinski to literally weaponize sound. If the characters in the movie make even the slightest sound, one not drowned out by a louder sound, the terrifying creatures will be drawn to their location and devour them. It’s a set of impossible rules that the characters have spent over a year playing by, and Krasinski essentially makes you part of their world by extension; just like the characters, the people I shared my theater with last night only made a peep when a louder sound than their chewing was guaranteed to drown it out. In that sense, A Quiet Place is a truly interactive horror movie experience.

No, making a sound while watching A Quiet Place in your local theater won’t result in a monster darting over to your location and killing you. But in a room full of people abiding by the film’s rules, I’m thinking you won’t likely be sitting next to someone who’s brave enough to break them. And given the movie is so attention-consuming right off the bat, I can’t imagine anyone not being invested enough to keep their eyes open, their mouth shut, and their hands as far away from wrappers, popcorn, and cell phones as possible.

Perusing Twitter today, looking at the accounts of friends as well as strangers, it seems my experience last night wasn’t an exception but rather the norm. And I can’t even believe I’m saying this, given I’ve been so publicly outspoken about my desire to never again have to watch a movie a crowd, but you need to see A Quiet Place with a crowd.

Buy a ticket. And keep your mouth shut.

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Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has two awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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Editorials

Taking a Closer Look at the ‘Christmas Carol’ Ghosts of Ti West’s ‘Ebenezer’

Published

19 hours ago

on

July 24, 2026

By

The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.

Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.

That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.

Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’

The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’

Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’

Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”

And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.

Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.

Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.

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