Just finished watching The Silence on Netflix. This movie is based on a Tim Lebbon novel from 2015. It is a nice mix of John Wyndham and The Birds with a dash of H. P. Lovecraft. I love bottleneck movies whether Science Fiction or Horror. The plot is pretty familiar to those of us who watch zombie movies and television. A catastrophe takes place and a nice nuclear family tries to survive it. The stakes are very high. To make this clear is a great scene on a subway train where the woman with the baby is ejected by the other passengers. (Shades of that last episode of M. A. S. H. too.) We get the family trapped in the car, in a cabin, and of course, the human element, religious crazies who want to cut everybody’s tongue out. (Thank you, Stephen King.)
I suppose I’m saying this is nothing new, and that is true. We saw very recently Sandra Bullock and her family try to survive something you should never see in Bird Box (which I enjoyed for the very same reasons). The Silence feels like a sequel in many ways. (I suppose if Netflix is working its way through the senses the next movie will have everyone trying not to taste anything.) Perhaps more important was the John Krasinkski film A Quiet Place (2018), which some critics suggest rips Lebbon off. It has the same idea of being quiet or aliens will eat you. The aliens are large humanoids with super-sensitive ears rather than blind killer baby pterodactyls. The over-all film is more personal than The Silence, with the family never leaving the farm they live on. There is a family drama revolving around the death of one son. The mother played by Emily Blunt is pregnant and has to go through labor while being stalked by one of the aliens. It reminds me of M. Night Shymalon’s Signs (2002) more in many ways. A Quiet Place got kudos for having a lot of sign language in it. The Silence does this too, making signing a survivor benefit. They are both very quiet movies until something bad happens. Then they get loud.
I quite enjoyed Stanley Tucci’s portrayal of a more ordinary person. He usually plays flamboyant types, whether good or evil. Kiernan Shipka of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina fame is familiar and a safe bet for Netflix, but she does a good job all the same. Miranda Otto plays the mother but doesn’t really stand out much. It’s about dad and daughter. There is a scene where the two must get antibiotics. It will resonate with The Walking Dead fans as well as those who enjoyed Stephen King’s The Mist (2007) as well as John Wyndham buffs. Apocalyptic fare is having a renaissance in the 21st Century. And not surprising, with daily news on global warming, toxic politics and now Covid-19. The 1970s (the last big go-round) have nothing on us.
I think I might read Lebbon’s book later. Usually if I see a film, it ruins any chance of enjoying the book unless they are quite different. Like most apocalyptic tales it leaves room open for a sequel. How do the survivors get on over time? John Wyndham never tells us in The Day of the Triffids (1951), though Simon Clark wrote a sequel, The Night of the Triffids (2001). I rather doubt Wyndham would have wanted that. Some critics have labeled his work “the cozy catastrophe” novel. A sequel might prove less comfortable.
