“A Quiet Place” is one of the most frightening movie experiences you will encounter in 2018.

This film is about a family living in a post apocalyptic version of upstate New York set in the year 2020. Because of the monsters that took out most of the world’s population, the family makes an attempt at survival to escape the terrifying new world they live in.

What sets this movie apart from other suspenseful films is the way it sets a certain atmosphere wherever viewers choose to watch this movie. The whole film offers very few lines of dialogue and the soundtrack is ambient, even nonexistent at times. The family mainly speaks in American Sign Language to avoid alerting the monsters that can strike at any moment. It creates a lot of tension and this overwhelming feeling of dread when the characters actually make any type of noise.

Millicent Simmonds is a deaf American actress who stars as the daughter in the movie. Director John Krasinski (who also is cast as the father of the family in the film) said in an interview with IGN, “I knew I needed a girl who was deaf for the role of the daughter, who is deaf in the movie. And for many reasons, I didn’t want a non-deaf actress pretending to be deaf. Most importantly though, because a deaf actress would help my knowledge and my understandings of the situations tenfold.”

Another fun fact is that the mother and father of the family in the movie are married in real life. Actress Emily Blunt stars alongside her husband John Krasinski and the chemistry they have on screen is amazing. There is a heartwarming scene in the film where the two share a pair of headphones and silently dance in the basement of their fortified country home while the monsters are hunting outside. The film evokes feelings of hopelessness and isolation, but scenes like this kept the movie from being overwhelmingly dreadful.

The monsters in the film are extremely terrifying. How these things came and conquered our world is never directly explained, but subtle hints can be found in newspaper headlines in the background. They are extremely cunning and hunt in packs. These things are dangerous and kill any living being that makes any sort of noise. It would have been great if the movie explained where the monsters came from, but it still is enjoyable enough to watch without having this info.

If you are a fan of sci-fi monster movies such as the original “Cloverfield” or “War of the Worlds,” “A Quiet Place” will not disappoint. The fact that the film has little spoken dialogue might deter some, but rewards patient viewers with some of the most thrilling moments in suspense films we haven’t seen in a long time. I am going to give this movie an 8/10 and a strong recommendation to go watch it in theatres.