Rating: 2.5/5
Oh My Horror 2025 | 16/52 | PG-13 Horror
Day 89 After only three months, the streets of Little Falls, New York, are cracked, and nature has begun reclaiming them. Teenage Regan and her four-year-old brother Cade tiptoe through the dilapidated drug store. Their other brother, Marcus, sits quietly along the empty shelves. Evelyn, their mother, looks through the filled prescription bottles, careful not to move them or make a noise. She gives Marcus a pill and signs to Regan that he’s okay.
Cade tries to grab a toy off the shelf and nearly drops it, but Regan catches it in time. Their father, Lee, packs some supplies for the radio and carefully pulls the batteries out of Cade’s toy before setting it aside. But Regan sneaks it back to Cade, and Cade takes the batteries. Outside, the family walks along sand paths they laid out to prevent crunching leaves. Suddenly, Cade’s toy goes off, and Lee runs towards Cade. But it’s too late—a creature comes out of the woods and takes the child.
Day 472 Regan awakens in a field on the farm where the family lives. Newspapers surround Lee to tell us that silence is the secret. His whiteboard has the most basic notes, including “What is their weakness??” in a box. Whatever these creatures are, they have taken over the world. Lee sends out SOSs over the shortwave radio using Morse Code. The film labors to show us the corn field and grain silo, so these will be set pieces later in the film, I assume. Evelyn is pregnant—I’m dying thinking about her and Lee’s silent lovemaking. How are they going to keep a baby from crying? Evelyn has a baby oxygen mask, a tank, and a soundproof box to keep the baby in.
Anyway, the rest of the movie oscillates between quiet family life and sudden outbursts of sound that jeopardize it.
The best part of the movie is Millicent Simmonds’s performance. As a deaf actor, she knows how to act with sign language. The other actors do all right except for John Krasinski, who thinks sign language IS acting.
The smartest move the filmmakers made was putting the film on Netflix, where millions watched The Office and nothing else. If anything would get them to watch a movie, it’s having John Kransinski star in it.
The filmmakers’ dumbest move was continuing to develop the rules around the monsters as the movie progressed. Seeing that they painted themselves into a corner, they found an exception that allowed them to skirt it.
The film is a great horror movie idea. It’s equal parts fun and frustrating to imagine what a director who actually liked the genre could do with it. I tried to suspend disbelief for this story, but when there is so much quiet for reflection, it becomes increasingly harder to accept. Still, I never had a bad time.