A Quiet Place (2018) is going to be one of the best horror movies of this year, and here’s why. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

As you can tell from the title, the movie is not heavy on dialogue or music, but the sound design is rich because of the amount of silence there is in the movie. The film concentrates heavily on every little sound there is in the movie, and it has you on the edge of your seat. Because of the amount, or lack of, sound, every time something drops on the floor or someone falls the whole theater jumps.

None of the characters really have names, yet you feel so connected to them and root for them the whole movie. I don’t know about the rest of the theater, but I bawled when the father died after signing “I love you” to his daughter. What made it more tragic was that everyone in the theater knew that the daughter’s hearing aid would ward off the aliens, but none of the characters did; his death could have been avoided if only the characters realized the aliens’ weakness sooner. Even though I hated that they killed him off, I knew that it was necessary. His death stayed true to his character, which is not always easy to accomplish.

The other death that took everyone by surprise was the death of the youngest son in the very beginning of the movie. It set the stage for the whole rest of the movie and made it clear to everyone that the directors were not scared to kill off characters; it made the atmosphere of the whole theater tense. Watching the father race the alien to try and get to the boy had my eyes glued to the screen, and it was incredibly heart wrenching to see the mother fall in despair when the alien finally grabbed the child.

The actors were amazing as well. The deaf daughter was actually played by a deaf actress, so her whole performance was very believable and seamless. And of course the legendary John Krasinski and Emily Blunt were an amazing duo and their chemistry was tangible throughout the whole film.

Because of the actors, the sound design and the plot, this movie will definitely go down as one of my top three favorite horror movies.