Aliens invade New York in tense Quiet Place prequel

You can't have a cat in here. It's a service cat. A Quiet Place Day One takes us back to the start of the alien invasion we've seen in the first two films in this franchise and we experience the extraterrestrial storming of New York City through the eyes and ears of Lupita Nyong'o's character Sam. It is high action, it is a Horror Story. Nyongo, her cat and her Co star Joseph Quinn try to slip under the radar and stay quiet to evade the alien attackers. Eli joins me now in studio for more on this scary film which the concept itself. I make so much noise with my scripts. I know exactly first to be taken. We would not survive very long. We would not. I'm known for my volume, not my quietness. You and I, they would just pluck us right out of the town. OK, so people know the Krasinski. He's from the office. He's also the mind behind this scary movie. The original 2018 film A Quiet Place he directed, starred in alongside with his wife Emily Blunt. New cast, new crew, a new film. Take us through those other films, the ones that started it all and how we got here. So I mean this what's amazing about Krasinski, right? A lot of people looked at him as that guy and then he develops this film which he was a Co writer on in such an interesting original world, right? Suddenly these aliens arrive, these hunters and they hunt by sound. They have these giant hearing organs. So if you break a twig, if you cough, you clear your throat. That's it. It is over. Now. The first one was set inside a family who were kind of hiding in this bunker using sign language. There was a sequel to that. But now we're rolling back that clock to, as you might imagine, day one. How did it all begin? Not that there's a lot of explanation. There's a lot of chaos and a lot of screaming, but not so much explanation. And it is set in New York City. And it's interesting. The opening credits tell us New York City on a good day is 90 decibels. And that's about the level of human screen. So you're already in a very noisy environment. And then this thing happens. Now, our main character is Lupita Nyong'o as Sam. Sam is living in a Hospice. She's not doing so well health wise. But they go into the town into into New York City for a show. And as you saw on her way in, lights in the sky start to hear screaming in the distance. Then she's on this bus and it is attacked and she wakes up and it is just absolute bedlam and chaos and anyone who screams for help. There's something moving. It's moving so fast you can't even see what it is. But let's try and figure it out. And that is like the deadly. I know, right? I need this pillow. Can I just hug this pillow? But you have to scream. But if you do scream, right. So very effective. Sam and her support cat, who we met Frodo. Very important. We're going to get back to Frodo. Sam and the cat. Yeah. I see you're already concerned, which is I like, see you're you're engaged. That's great. It's too much. So for the moment, they get into the theater. Now they're hunkering down with other people and they hear helicopters overhead. Look what's going on. So they run up to the roof. Let's take a listen. Shelter in place, further instruction. You can help each other. We have to get out, right? So you need to get out of the city. But it looks like the Air Force just bombed all the bridges exiting Manhattan. So you're now stuck in the Big Apple with all the very hungry, hungry hunters. Well, I would think the bombing would help create some loud noise so you can run under the cover of the bombs. But I guess that's not what I see you're thinking so far in this movie. See, they needed me. OK, so we we understand like what's happening, why they need to run for their lives. Who's telling the story this time around? So give you a little a little spoiler. When I go into Theo, the first thing I do is I look up the director if I don't know who's directing it. And I and I I you heard me whining about sequels and prequels all summer. So I'm getting rid of the apes. Exactly, all of that. And so I'm like, all right, another Quiet Place movie. The first one was great. Who is the director? The director is Michael Sarnowski. And you think, OK, Eli, who's that guy? He directed the movie. Pig. Pig was amazing. Pig looked like on the outside, the typical manic Nicolas Cage on a mission of revenge movie. It is about a chef whose truffle hunting pig is kidnapped and the chef goes on a mission to get back his pig. And while it looked like the typical kind of wacko, violent Nicolas Cage odyssey, Pig was actually a movie about living a life of purpose and about being an artist and trying to find your place in in the universe and what that can do to a man. So an amazing film from an amazing director. And now this director is taking on the alien invasion. And so in a similar way, I'd like to say that more than just a scary monster thriller, this movie, day one had a couple moves that surprised me now, but has a great director. It also has a great actor, Lupita Nyongo, Like she's so good. What an actor, what a face. And I say face because there she is with Joseph Quinn. So it's her and Joseph Quinn as Eric. He's this British banker, and he ends up being with Lupita Nyonga, who plays Sam, and they're just trying to survive. In a weird way, this horror film made me think of silent movies because these characters, they don't have the advantage of sign language, so they need to do everything. Anger, annoyance, irritation, comedy with their bodies, with their faces. And when you have a face like Lupita and the young goes, she does all the notes and then some. So wonderful stuff and. And really works in surprising ways. Yeah. Very expressive. Just the eyes, you see the terror that she's feeling. And I would probably be feeling too because I already am just hearing about you talk about this. How does this third installment stand compared to the first two? I mean, part of it is what you would expect, which is a little derivative, but still a lot of fun. It is hide and seek with monsters. And there's some very, very kind of physical predicaments. I'm going to give you one more that you're going to try and bear where they're on the run and they run into a skyscraper, but they get stuck in a revolving door. Take a look Come on there you go OK, I I literally had this kind of jokingly, but I I actually am surprised I haven't ripped the insides of this bring you to all the scary movies. Now you're like the perfect candidate. Now look, that stuff works. And it is evidently, as we've seen in our own little focus group, very effective, but it was just that it would be fine. But what I appreciate is that it's more than that. Besides the hide and seek with monsters and all of that that we just saw, there are moments of tenderness. There is moments of comedy. There's a sense of defiance from Sam, who is not trying to run away. She decides. She tells Eric, you know what? I'm going to Harlem. I'm going to Harlem to get a piece of pizza because the world is burning. I'm going to get that last beautiful slice of pizza, which maybe not be your move, but I think that's part of what makes her character so great. So I think this movie surprised me. In some ways that makes it more like a better than average scary alien, OK. It's definitely not a quiet place because my heart's making a lot of noise. It's all of a sudden OK action-packed alien film about an invasion. Going to pause right now to show your rating. Here it is. Here you go. 3 1/2 stars out of five. Very effective. I did forget to mention one final star that might sell you Frodo the cat. Yes, Frodo the cat, very effective, a lot of fun that is there. There's there with there's Frodo and that helps right 'cause you have the scares, but you also have this cat. Most cats have 9 lives. Frodo has like 21. Frodo, very good. You're not fearless necessarily. I'm not. I'm a scaredy cat, but that is just a cat cat and it's great. It gets around the aliens and and actually might help soothe you as you're. This is my Frodo this morning. Eli, Thank you for this. You're welcome. I don't know if I can watch it.