A Quiet Place Part II, review: a reminder that cinema can breed true fear

• Dir: John Krasinski. Starring: Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Cillian Murphy, Noah Jupe, Djimon Hounsou. 15 cert, 97 mins

The original A Quiet Place, released in 2018, was a shrewdly devised science-fiction thriller about sightless, sharp-eared alien invaders – revolting squiggles of spikes, membranes and chitin that pounced on and devoured anyone who made so much as a peep. That film opened on the 89th day of the disaster, by which point the redoubtably Abbott family had acclimatised to their new, hushed existence, communicating in sign language and tiptoeing around the place on bare, bandaged feet. But this sequel begins on what an on-screen caption ominously informs us is Day One, and the first nerve-shredding sight is nothing more than a shot of ordinary, everyday life.

A high school baseball game is taking place in a park, and Marcus Abbott (Noah Jupe) is up at bat. His deaf older sister Regan (Millicent Simmonds) is watching from the stands, along with the children’s mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and father Lee (John Krasinski, who also returns as writer and director). Given what we know is about to unfold – and also perhaps thanks to our own year-plus of enforced isolation – this scene of happy, noisy, communal activity throbs obliviously with threat, even before the crowd spots the fiery shards descending from the clouds.

Back in March 2020, A Quiet Place Part II was one of the first major Hollywood productions to have its release postponed in the early days of the pandemic. Fifteen months after its premiere, it’s now coming to cinemas, packing an additional, post-Covid resonance its makers never anticipated – but which mercifully doesn’t feel too resonant for comfort.

In fact, you could hardly ask for a sharper reminder of blockbuster cinema’s charms than the crescendo from swelling dread to snappily choreographed chaos that comprises the film’s tremendous 10-minute prologue. A brilliantly devised backseat shot of Blunt trying to drive her children to safety, before slamming the vehicle into reverse when she realises what she’s driving towards, is exactly the kind of spectacle that connects all the more viscerally and enjoyably when experienced with an audience. At this week’s critics’ preview, even mandatory face masks couldn’t fully stifle the collective gasps.

Soon enough we rejoin the Abbotts, or what’s left of them, on Day 474, immediately after the first film’s rousing final shot. The desperate mother-and-daughter last stand evidently worked out, and Evelyn, Regan, Marcus and the family’s new baby are fleeing their burning home into the wilderness, eventually reaching a point at which they must leave their home-made network of soft sand paths and step onto crunchily untrodden ground.

Here they encounter Emmett (Cillian Murphy), a former neighbour who has lost his son and wife, and is living alone in despair inside the rusting husk of an abandoned steelworks. From here, their radio picks up a mysterious signal: Bobby Darin’s Beyond the Sea on constant repeat, which Regan interprets as a clue to their fellow survivors’ whereabouts. So the group splits, with Regan and Emmett going in search of a boat while Evelyn, Marcus and the baby lie low, keeping as silent as can be inside a vast hangar of things that clank.

As before, the premise has a crisply satisfying, playground-game simplicity: you have to remain completely quiet or else the monsters will get you, while executing various tasks that make quietness very tricky indeed. None this time are anywhere near as conceptually fiendish as childbirth – though keeping the baby pacified is a good one, and involves (please don’t try this at home) a soundproofed wooden box with its own oxygen supply, which must be regularly topped up.

During some pivotal moments, Krasinski builds tension by cross-cutting between two or three plot strands so that certain discoveries or advances can be made in tandem. But the effect isn’t as nail-biting as it might be since Regan and Emmett’s story – a series of spine-jangling riffs on the Jurassic Park and Alien films – is by far the more involving of the two. The creeping around at the factory all feels a bit “meanwhile…” in comparison, though while the family’s struggle is less emotionally layered this time around, Blunt remains a steely joy, and there can be no argument with her signature shotgun-plus-tea-dress look, suggestive of Ellen Ripley on the school run.

Murphy’s haunted, bedraggled Emmett is less well-realised, and is mostly defined in terms of who he isn’t: namely, Krasinski’s valiant, selfless, hyper-capable Lee. But that may ultimately be to the film’s advantage, since it leaves enough space in the story for the 18-year-old Simmonds – who is herself deaf – to emerge as an intrepid, resolute, entirely captivating young heroine in her own right. Regan’s deafness is no disadvantage, but a different means of comprehending and navigating a world in which silence and survival are inextricably twined.

In the cinema – which is of course where you should see it – you almost can’t help but play along, not daring to shift in your seat in case a creak gives the game away. My television at home is perfectly decent, but I’ve yet to find myself breathing in sync with it.

In cinemas now