Silent, stirring, bleak & brilliant.

As feels rather appropriate, the assault on the worldwide box office by the A Quiet Place franchise has been both silent and deadly. With a killer concept and an impeccable execution, both the 2018 film and its sequel were huge hits that few saw coming.

Stripped back, nerve shredding, and faultlessly cast, A Quiet Place felt like the perfect one-and-done horror that left a big impression without ever outstaying its welcome. However, after earning big bucks on a tiny budget the sequel treatment felt inevitable. And so it proved, as Part II was greenlit, and another sizeable hit made.

Of course, Hollywood being Hollywood, this kind of financial success means things never truly stop there – and thus, a full-blown franchise was born. Despite the obvious financial incentives, however, a further continuation of the story feels a bit redundant and more than a little risky; however, despite these dangers, Day One is a more than worthy continuation of the quietest horror franchise in town.

Rewinding to the moment the noise sensitive, blood thirsty aliens fell to earth, terminally ill cancer patient Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) finds herself visiting New York City when the nightmare begins. Accompanied by her emotional support cat, Frodo, and law student, Eric (Joseph Quinn), Sam must stay silent and find safety (and pizza) before it’s all too late.

If we’re being honest, a prequel to A Quiet Place could’ve easily been a disaster. As a franchise that benefits so much from its low-key intimacy, expanding its scope and bulking out its back story feels like it could’ve gone very, very wrong. It is with great relief to report, therefore, that A Quiet Place: Day One gets just about everything right.

Delicately balancing the desire to expand the Quiet Place universe with the need to keep things intimate, Day One nails exactly what’s made this franchise so special. Yes, it does fill a little back story and yes, it takes us out of the rural setting we’re used to and plonks us right in the bustling heart of New York City, however, Day One succeeds by taking all this and boiling it all down to its most human elements.

It’s hard to deny that, in switching the location to a busy and noisy New York, the film overtly broadens the scope beyond anything we’ve seen previously, but while there are certainly huge risks with this relocation, the story Day One tells within it is quietly, beautifully, and painfully human.

As many likeminded movies have found out, it’s incredibly hard to make such monumental alien-centric shenanigans relatable in any way. When monstrous aliens are tearing apart cities and devouring humans left, right, and centre, heart and humanity so often go out the window, however, taking its lead from its predecessors, Day One uses its broad genre elements as the backdrop to a wonderfully affecting and deceptively simple story.

Low-key but highly affective and stuffed with heart, Day One’s character-focused story may have a big old alien invasion plot driving it, yet it never once lets the chaos dilute it. Make no mistake, this is a deeply and painfully human story of life, death, and the power of human connection that stands on its own two feet regardless of the alien action swirling around it.

As heartfelt as it is intense, Day One is a delicately poised balance of genre thrills and intimate emotional beats that offers big, bold action anchored by something incredibly relatable.

Minimalist but devastatingly effective, Michael Sarnoski’s writing keeps things just as tight and just as taut as the first two films. Dipping us in and out of this now familiar world in no time, writer-director Sarnoski gives us just the right amount of story, world building, and character to get by but never oversaturates things with unnecessary franchise flab.

As was the case with the first two films, Day One knows exactly what the franchise’s USP is and takes full advantage of it. For obvious reasons, silence is everything to the A Quiet Place franchise and Day One very much uses this noiselessness to its advantage.

Leaning into its rich sound design and Alexis Grapsas’ beautifully delicate score, Day One revels in its quiet moments, refusing to use them as fuel for cheap jump scares and preferring instead to utilise them to both complement and inform the characters and their story. It truly is a rarity for any modern blockbuster and it’s an approach that does a far better job of communicating things than all the usual CGI carnage or overblown action can.

As one might expect, huge chunks of the plot have the distinct feel of a silent film, with a physicality and an emphasis on visual storytelling that’s both remarkably astute and devastatingly effective. It’s also an approach that relies heavily on the presence, poise, and physical prowess of its stars.

Embracing the trauma and terrifying tranquillity, Lupita Nyong’o once again proves just what a star she is, packing absolutely everything she’s got into a role that demands both immense strength and fragile vulnerability with little to no dialogue for extended periods of time. Having to deal with the dark spectre of mortality even before a single alien arrives in New York, there’s something so inherently enthralling and deeply poignant about the way Nyong’o carries herself that instantly draws you in and has you rooting for her, despite the tragic inevitability of her situation.

As she’s put through the wringer, Nyong’o radiates charm and affability, even if Sam’s understandably disconnected nature threatens to alienate us. Clinging tight to her emotional support cat, Frodo (a standout character in his own right), Nyong’o’s Sam refuses to budge emotionally for much of the opening act, but as the action kicks in and the cracks in her facade start to show, she slowly but surely accepts the kind of human connection we all truly desire, whether we like to admit it or not.

As co-star and companion for this fight, Joseph Quinn makes for the perfect foil for Lupita Nyong’o, managing to both complement and support her through the journey. Far from the all-action saviour you may expect, Eric is both an emotional and physical mess, but he’s all the better for it.

Turning up wet (both literally and metaphorically), wide-eyed, shellshocked, and on the verge of a panic attack, Quinn’s Eric is about as far away from the kind of girl saving hero he could’ve been and is, for all intents and purposes, just a guy. He’s just a guy studying law, whose parents live in Kent, reacting exactly how we all would under such extraordinary circumstances.

Continually caught in the grip of a panic attack as, one might imagine, most people would be under such circumstances, Eric, much like Sam, is very (almost painfully) real. His job, like the wonderful Frodo, is essentially to assist Nyong’o and he does just that while offering a little extra depth to the plot, a tonne of heart, and some delightful character moments along the way.

Joseph Quinn, for his part, is excellent and once again shows why he’s one to watch for the future, however, for all intents and purposes, this is the Lupita Nyong’o show. From beginning to end, she proves just what a star she truly is, doing the most crucial of things for any protagonist - instilling her character with empathy, likeability, and relatability.

With little more than facial expressions and the slightest of body movements, Lupita Nyong’o imbues Sam with a huge amount of depth. Despite Day One’s horror trappings, her character’s story is not necessarily one of survival (it’s clear from the off that she has accepted that she’s not long for this world) it’s more a story about living.

Whether it’s getting home to Harlem, eating a slice of pizza, or protecting her cat, Sam’s story, like the film itself, is one of living life through the small things and the little human connections we find along the way, even in the most horrendous of circumstances. And considering the frequently horrendous times we live in right now, this is something I’m sure we can all cling onto and use to keep us - and this franchise - moving forward into the future.

And, make no mistake, there is very much a future for this franchise. How far things can be taken, who knows? However, on Day One’s evidence, the story is only just beginning. Despite understandable scepticism when a prequel was announced, you’d be a fool to not see just how much potential this whole thing now has, and, if handled as well as it has been so far, we may be looking at potentially one of the finest horror series of all time.

Despite the many ways a Quiet Place prequel could’ve gone wrong, it comes as a great relief to report that Day One gets almost everything right. Much like its predecessors, A Quiet Place: Day One boils such a monumental sci-fi horror story down to its most basic human elements to offer a simple, relatable story that’s as heartfelt as it is intense and the perfect expansion of this world.