Warning: The following review for Netflix's The Silence contains some very light spoilers.
In storytelling, originality means a lot. In scary storytelling, it means even more.
Whether it's creating a never-before-seen monster like The Babadook or making the commonplace seem menacing à la Jaws, terrifying in unexpected ways is a critical component of effective horror. So when a trailer aims to frighten and instead gets met with relentless comparisons to already released movies, it can indicate trouble.
Fortunately, The Silence — regularly compared to A Quiet Place and Bird Box — is far more than a rip-off of someone else's good idea.
Yes, it's a whole lot like those movies. It's also a lot like Alfred Hithcock's The Birds, The Walking Dead, and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, based on casting. There's even some subtle Hunger Games action towards the very end. (You'll know it when you see it.)
And yet, while the presence of varying past projects can be felt throughout, this new Netflix thriller manages to forge a fresh, weird world that is both engaging and unnerving.
Measured on its own merit, The Silence is already unique. The story comes from Tim Lebbon's novel of the same — released in 2015, a full three years before A Quiet Place hit theaters and one year after the Bird Box novel hit shelves.
Starring Kiernan Shipka and Stanley Tucci, The Silence depicts the shaky survival of one family as they attempt to escape a growing swarm of bloodthirsty bat-like creatures that have emerged from underneath Earth's crust to hunt human prey using only sound. Along their road to redemption, the family must stay completely silent to avoid detection — even when they encounter a sinister and sadistic cult intent on causing them harm.
This post-apocalyptic story of perseverance will have you holding your breath scene-to-scene, just like A Quiet Place and Bird Box. The creatures are scary. The jump scares are shocking. And that extreme sensory manipulation gimmick? As effective as ever.
But rather than settling for following a successful formula, The Silence pushes the tried-and-true premise from its upsetting origins to its unthinkable limits.
To wit: In A Quiet Place, when a baby begins crying, threatening the survival of everyone around it, the baby's parents engineer a solution to save everyone involved. In The Silence, uh... not so lucky for the baby.
Similarly, in Bird Box, when a blind-folded Sandra Bullock aimlessly steers a lifeboat down a raging river, she vaguely hopes some birds will save her and her two children. In The Silence, Stanley Tucci breaks out the shotgun... and the wood chipper.
While not necessarily better, The Silence is certainly more ruthless that its predecessors and as a result manages to surprise in its own spectacular ways. If you've seen A Quiet Place and Bird Box, then you'll likely enjoy this new take on the emerging format.
And if you haven't? Well, then you're in for one hell of a not-so-silent ride.
The Silence is now streaming on Netflix.
