﻿Every year, as the blockbuster season ramps up,
one horror movie sneaks in out of nowhere and cleans up at the box office.
Whether it’s ‘Get Out,’ ‘The Witch,’ or ‘It Follows,’
it’s like we need a palette-cleansing dose of terror before the onslaught of ‘Star Wars’ and infinite superheroes.
And this year’s scary sleeper hit could be ‘A Quiet Place,’
John Krazinski’s new horror film with a simple but spine-tingling premise:
Monsters have taken over the world,
and if they hear you, they hunt you.
The movie strips away one of the most important elements of cinema:
Dialogue.
The characters barely speak a word,
most of the movie is in American Sign Language,
and that only makes it more terrifying.
‘A Quiet Place’ isn’t the only movie to substitute dread for dialogue,
and it’s not hard to see why.
I’m Kya, and today,
I want to talk about horror movies that don’t,
and see
How Silence is Louder Than Screams
Let’s face it,
horror movies aren’t really known for their witty dialogue.
That’s one of the reasons kill count videos are so popular,
besides all the views I give them,
they cut out all the bullshit and jump straight to the good stuff,
and by the good stuff, I mean the gore stuff, obviously.
By dumping dialogue, we do lose stuff like Freddy Krueger’s shit-talking,
How's this for a wet dream?
and some hilariously cheesy lines,
Yeah, forget you, too!
But we can gain a lot in exchange,
starting with
Atmosphere
During the silent era, directors had to rely on stylized, expressionistic set design,
lighting, shadows,
and creepy makeup to create images that are scary as heck, even a hundred years later.
Nosferatu!
Today’s horror movies still rely heavily on imagery to deliver the terror,
especially in films that leave characters without a voice.
Like in 2016’s ‘Hush,’ where a deaf and mute woman is stalked by a masked killer.
It uses a constantly moving steadicam to turn her house into a deadly maze,
where if she turns the wrong corner, she’s dead.
‘Don’t Breathe’ is another movie that turns the tables,
as we follow a group of thieves who set out to rob a blind man… well, blind.
But they find way more than they bargained for.
He can’t see our ‘heroes’ but he can hear them,
and, just like ‘Hush,’ the camera turns yet another nice, quaint house in the suburbs into a terrifying tomb.
Rocky?
In ‘A Quiet Place,’ the forests of upstate New York become a lonely, empty hunting ground,
where you’ll be sliced in half if you so much as sneeze.
[SCREAMING]
Horror doesn’t come from what a character says,
it comes from the situation they’re stuck in.
And without the crutch of dialogue,
silence can be an incredible tool in a director’s arsenal,
Especially when it comes to building
Tension
How many horror movies have you seen where characters hide in a closet,
holding back a scream as the killer slowly walks by?
How many final girls have stumbled around a dark basement looking for clues,
until some asshole cat jumps out and scares the living shit out of them?
The kill might be the satisfying part,
but the horror’s in the anticipation,
the eerie silence punctuated by a muffled heartbeat,
echoing footsteps,
and a score that builds to the perfect jump scare.
He's laughing at us.
You got what you deserved.
Alive! He's alive!
But hey, you don’t have to take my word for it.
Alfred Hitchcock has a famous anecdote perfectly explaining the art of onscreen tension:
In order to get suspense, you provide the audience with a certain amount of information,
and leave the rest to the imagination.
It’s about an imbalance of information,
about what we know vs. what the characters know.
In ‘Hush,’ murder and mayhem happens all around our heroine.
She can’t hear her neighbors’ agonized screams,
but the audience can see every gory detail.
We can feel the danger, even if she can’t.
‘Don’t Breathe’ has a similar example,
when our ‘heroes’ are first confronted by the Blind Man.
They know he can’t see them,
and we know they’re in for a world of hurt if they utter a sound.
Money speaks up, in an attempt to convince the Blind Man that he’s acting alone,
which means Rocky has to stifle her screams as her friend is shot in the face right in front of her.
Don’t steal guys. It’s wrong.
‘A Quiet Place’ uses the characters’ forced silence to play with our expectations.
What’s going to happen when someone steps on that rusty nail?
AHHHHHHHH!!!
How is Emily Blunt going to give birth without her or her baby uttering a sound?
And I wouldn’t want to be around when that shotgun goes off…
The movie sets up scenarios that force us to think about consequences,
which makes the payoff all the more frightening.
You don’t need words to sell a feeling,
but what about a story?
Let’s see how they handle
Exposition
A lot of fright flicks suffer from what I like to call the ‘Crazy Ralph’ syndrome,
named after my favorite Friday the 13th character that isn’t Crispin Glover.
Goin' to Camp Blood, ain't ya?!
God dammit, Ralph, get out of here, go on, get!
You know the drill,
there’s always a wild-eyed local,
or friendly neighborhood demonologist that shows up to drop plot points, I mean, knowledge on whatever’s threatening our heroes.
It’s clunky, inelegant,
and more often than not, stops a movie dead in its tracks.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my gore accompanied by lore,
but in horror, the less we know, the more scared we are.
That’s why the best monsters are barely seen,
like the original ‘Xenomorph’ or the shark from ‘Jaws.’
You don’t need a Skype call from Vincent D'Onofrio to tell you how you’re gonna die.
...Named Baghuul. The eater of children.
Did you say 'eater?'
Yes, of children.
A great director can terrify you without a single word.
Now, ‘Hush’ and ‘Don’t Breathe’ actually have a surprising amount of dialogue for their premises,
and they do exposition the old-fashioned way.
But ‘A Quiet Place’ excels at showing without telling.
We learn about the characters’ situation from what they do,
and how they’ve adapted to their new world.
They walk around barefoot and pour paths made of sand to muffle their footsteps,
they play Monopoly with soft, felt pieces,
and eat their meals off of lettuce leaves instead of noisy plates.
Even though, wouldn't the crunch of the lettuce leaves make a sound? But whatever.
Sure, there’s some newspaper clippings to fill in the blanks,
but it’s still an awesome example of worldbuilding without words.
You don’t need dialogue to build character, either.
Just look at the incredible Season 4 ‘Buffy’ episode, also called ‘Hush.’
It's amazing!!!
The Gentlemen are the freakiest monsters I’ve ever seen in the series,
and that's saying a lot,
and that’s before they steal your voice and claw your heart out.
Joss Whedon was worried his show relied too much on his snappy dialogue,
so he shut the Scoobies up for a whole episode.
There's like a funny part where they're trying to talk about killing demons, and Buffy's going like this,
but it looks like she's jerking off,
and Xander's looking at her like 'what?'
and she's just like let me get utensils to show that I'm trying to club someone over the head.
It's really funny.
‘Hush’ is all about how language gets in the way of the characters connecting,
but once the noise is stripped away,
Buffy and Riley can express their feelings for eachother,
(gross)
Anya overcomes her doubts about Xander,
and Tara finds the courage to overcome her shyness.
Buffy and Riley are the WORST. Riley is worst. They're the worst couple. Sorry.
Spike and Buffy. That's it.
Willow and Tara. Spike and Buffy. Xander and no one because he deserves no one.
Without dialogue, their performances tell us all we need to know,
just like in ‘A Quiet Place.’
The movie’s real strength comes from its cast,
whether it’s John Krasinski’s famously expressive face,
Emily Blunt’s steely resolve,
or the amazing ASL intensity of Millicent Simmonds.
When it comes to conveying terror in a soundless setting,
silence speaks volumes.