No two prequel movies are the same, but the format tends to share some basic similarities. Take Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace and the Alien prequel, Prometheus. Despite both being sci-fi prequels to major franchises originally introduced in the ‘70s, they couldn’t be more different. The Phantom Menace is designed to fill in as much lore as possible, turning throwaway dialogue about “the Clone Wars” from the original Star Wars into pivotal prequel plot. Meanwhile, Prometheus is barely even an Alien movie, with returning director Ridley Scott more interested in raising new questions than explaining much of anything about the franchise he launched. Despite these differences, both films ultimately manage to flesh out the canon of their respective franchises in interesting ways, giving fans plenty of material to inscribe on various wiki pages and fueling nerdy new debates over the origins of the Force or Xenomorphs.
A Quiet Place Day One, a prequel to John Krasinski’s tension-packed thrillers about a race of blind-but-deadly aliens who navigate by sound, does none of those things. Yes, we technically get to see the moment when the aliens landed on Earth and the chaos that ensued, but we don’t learn anything new about their origins or biology. Day One also isn’t interested in exploring the post-apocalyptic world of its franchise. Instead, it’s a touching story of a dying woman, her cat, and their quest to get the last slice of pizza in New York.
Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (coming fresh off his indie hit Pig, which launched a Nicolas Cage renaissance with its noir-soaked journey through the underbelly of the culinary world), A Quiet Place Day One stars Lupita Nyong'o as Samira, a woman with terminal cancer who goes on a trip to New York on the same day as the aliens. When the attack begins, Samira and her service cat Frodo embark on a quest through the city to visit the pizzeria her dad used to take her to as a child. They’re joined by Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British law school student who invites himself along on Sam’s adventure.
If that sounds like an extremely far cry from Krasinski’s two action-heavy Quiet Place movies, that’s because it is. While Day One does feature some action-packed moments, it’s clear Sarnoski cares much less about the rules of this franchise than he does about the storytelling potential of a world where talking (or making any sound at all) is suddenly forbidden. The movie’s best moments embrace this in surprising ways, sometimes delving into a Charlie Chaplin-esque performance as the characters do their best to emote without moving their lips.
In an interview with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ now-defunct blog A.Frame, Sarnoski explained what drew him to John Krasinski’s sci-fi universe.
“Nothing grabbed me the way Day One did, partly because of the freedom Paramount was willing to give me,” he said. “Everyone was really excited to bring a fresh voice into the fray. John, in particular, was really supportive.”
Sarnoski adds that while A Quiet Place Day One was a huge step up in scope and budget from his work on Pig (which cost just $3 million to produce compared to Day One’s $67 million), he did his best to “foster a sort of indie vibe on the set.”
Beyond refusing to play out like your typical prequel, A Quiet Place Day One also avoids some other-played out genre tropes. While both Krasinski and the studio were deadset on telling this story in New York, Sarnoski was careful not to fall back on other cinematic portrayals of a Manhattan apocalypse.
“In my mind, I was going through all of the apocalyptic New York movie tropes that I wanted to avoid,” he said, “like military involvement, or trying to escape the city, or trying to rescue a lost family member.”
The result is a sci-fi movie like no other, with incredible performances from Nyong'o, Quinn, and the scene-stealing cat Frodo (played by two cats named Nico and Schnitzel) crafting an emotionally poignant story against the backdrop of what sometimes looks like a Cloverfield remake.
Perhaps the best comparison to make would be with Godzilla Minus One, which similarly tells a moving human drama in the shadow of a deadly, eldritch monster. Both Minus One and Day One refuse to play by genre rules, and in the process, they manage to push their respective franchises (and maybe even the entire sci-fi genre) forward in amazing new ways.
