As stated in my “About Me” page, I want to focus on mostly movies that people may not be familiar with, and I think this movie is a good example. The movie is titled “The Silence” and is much like the very popular “A Quiet Place” movie, which may be the reason it is not widely known. “The Silence” was made in 2019 and directed by John R. Leonetti.

As mentioned before, this movie is very similar to “A Quiet Place” but of course the director had to add his own spin. The movie is based on the world being under attack by bat-like creatures called “vesps” that hunt their prey by sound. While following the journey of the Andrews family as they try to survive and acclimate to this new life of complete silence, we find out that the daughter named Ally and played by Kiernan Shipka, is deaf from an accident. Much like “A Quiet Place” the family knows sign language as a result of Ally’s hearing loss. The Andrews family and a family friend, played by John Corbett, embark on their journey across the country from NYC, one of the loudest cities in the country, to a quitter, more secluded area. After experiencing the losses of two main characters, the family eventually finds a house in the country side. Just when they think they are finally safe, a new danger arrives: a cult called “The Hushed” comes knocking on their door looking for Ally. This cult cut all their tongues out and knows about how Ally is deaf. They want to take her and exploit her “gift” for their benefit. The Reverend of the cult also unsettlingly reveals that they’re interested in capturing Ally because she’s “fertile.” Gross.

I believe that “The Hushed” in this movie represent an important theme of evolution. When a former apex predator is confronted by a new apex predator, one of the best chances at survival is to reproduce and replenish their numbers. Now after the world is taken over by creepy bat creatures and 100,000s of people are killed a day, in theory it seems valid to want to boost the population back up. Now as a woman, I think that this is entirely disgusting, but the idea is valid.

One of the best parts of this movie is that it actually explains how the vesps came to existence. In fact, it was in the first scene of the movie. The vesps were trapped in a cave where they have been festering for 100s of years. One day, they were let out of the cave they were in and were able to invade the world. Now unlike a zombie apocalypse where zombies can only infest one person at a time, the vesps are able to lay dozens of rapid-growing eggs in their victims at once, allowing the population to grow at a rapid speed.

The reason I gave this movie 3 out of 5 starts is because 1. it is almost the same as “A Quiet Place” and 2. even though the director did add the concept of the cult to add his own flair to the movie, the whole cult thing just made me very uncomfortable. Like who goes up to a girl and her father and says that they want her because she’s fertile? No thank you.