Pros: Popular actors in leading roles Cons: Completely standard plot; predictability of every scene; unconvincing; exploitation of the theme of people with disabilities The Silence/ “Silence”
Genre: horror, science fiction
Directed by John Leonetti
Starring: Kiernan Shipka (Ellie), Stanley Tucci (Hugh), Miranda Otto (Callie), John Corbett (Glenn), Kate Trotter (Lynn), Kylie Briethof (Jude), etc.
Constantin Film Studios, Netflix
Year of release 2019
Site IMDb
Work on the fantastic horror film The Silence ended in December 2017, but releasing a similar film in 2018, simultaneously with an almost similar script and idea, A Quiet Place, was tantamount to suicide. But now, after the release of the popular series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina with Kiernan Shipka in the title role, even a second-rate film with the participation of this actress is guaranteed to attract attention. Get this – a horror film about a deaf teenage girl and hearing-based monsters. Doesn’t remind you of anything?
So, speleologists exploring a cave system under the Appalachians make a passage into a closed underground chamber and release creatures that have lived there since the time of dinosaurs, resembling a hybrid of a bat and a small pterodactyl. The hearing-guided creatures instantly scatter across the United States and begin to exterminate people. How many millions of creatures, called “vesps” by people, lived underground, and what they ate there for millions of years, the scriptwriters are silent. Perhaps we cannot find a more banal beginning for a horror film.
However, almost everything in The Silence is banal. Every plot point, every scene, every jump scare is predictable to the point of gnashing of teeth. This horror film uses well-worn clichés and doesn’t even try to scare you.
Instead, the authors actively exploit the issues of people with disabilities. They operate extremely clumsily and straightforwardly. And… am I the only one who thinks that a deaf person, on the contrary, would be extremely out of place in a world populated by sound-based predators? He does not realize how loud the sound he himself makes while moving, does not hear the creaking of sand and the crunch of branches under his feet, does not understand how noisy the place in which he is is, does not hear the approach of creatures. The perfect first victim. This confused me even in A Quiet Place, and it confuses me very much in The Silence. Moreover, in A Quiet Place the heroine is hard of hearing and mute, and her broken sound system plays an important role in the plot, while in The Silence the girl is simply deaf and at times must simply not understand what is happening around her.
In addition to the now popular Kiernan Shipka, who looks rather pale in The Silence, the film features such good actors as Stanley Tucci and Miranda Otto. The latter, by the way, played Sabrina’s aunt in the same Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Alas, neither Tucci nor Otto simply have room to develop in this film, their roles are strikingly simple, and their characters are flat. Yes, and there is also a villain here, how could we not do without it. Also very predictable and boring.
In a word, The Silence is not scary at all, an absolutely standard low-budget science fiction horror film that would be classified as category B, or even C, if not for the names of the actors involved in it.
Conclusion:
A completely banal and absolutely not scary horror film that exploits popular themes
