The Silence – ‘The Quiet Place’s’ lesser-known cousin

Anyone who’s been into films over the years will recognise that weird trend where two films arrive on the scene at almost the exact same time and both cover near identical topics (‘Armageddon/Deep Impact, Mars Attacks/Independence Day, Dante’s Peak/Volcano’ and so on).  In 2018 us horror fans were treated to an unexpectedly little awesome film where monsters took over the world who hunted humans purely by noise.  This was, of course, ‘A Quiet Place.’ Now – sort of – a year later, along comes ‘The Silence.’

And – guess what – it’s about a load of monsters who hunt entirely by sound attacking the world.  Now, if that was the only similarity I could probably be a little more forgiving on ‘The Silence’ and, from what I’ve read online, so many of the similarities are purely coincidental.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t hide the fact that if you’ve already watched ‘A Quiet Place’ then you’ve already seen everything ‘The Silence’ has to offer – only much, much better.

I feel bad about running ‘The Silence’ down too much.  It’s not that bad and I’m guessing if you HAVEN’T seen ‘A Quiet Place’ then you’ll enjoy it all the more.  However, pretty much every aspect I saw was done better.

‘The Silence’ is about a family.  So it ‘A Quiet Place.’ Only the family in ‘A Quiet Place’ are far more interesting and likable.  Actually, the family in ‘The Silence’ are so annoyingly-perfect that I found it quite grating.  And, the family in both know ‘sign language’ due to the daughter (in both) being deaf, therefore giving them a tactical advantage at living in silence.

I could go on with the similarities, but there are too many to mention.  Plus the monsters in ‘The Silence’ aren’t half as nasty-looking (or well animated with computer effects) than ‘A Quiet Place.’ I will say that about the only major difference between the two were the films’ starting points. ‘The Silence’ kicks off before the monsters attack whereas ‘A Quiet Place’ begins long after humanity has almost been hunted to extinction.

Basically, if I hadn’t seen ‘A Quiet Place’ I could probably have enjoyed ‘The Silence’ so much more, so, if you only see one monster-munching film about blind monsters who hunt through sound, I think you can tell by now which one I’d recommend!

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back