The Silence - Movie Review

As a huge horror fan, I feel foolish waiting this long to finally get round to watching this modern classic. The Silence is a truly intense survival horror movie with a premise similar to that of A Quiet Place, with the monsters being these flocks of blind demonic bats (with super hearing), from deep beneath the earth's surface, much like the blind xenomorph style Aliens from out of space we see in the Quiet Place. The Silence feels both modern yet vintage with it's story, giving us plenty of zombie apocalypse vibes, while having our protagonists escape a hundred hungry bats, much like the Alfred Hitchcock classic, The Birds. However, the film is not without it's problems, which I will discuss within this review.

With The Silence releasing one year after A Quiet Place, one can't help but feel like this is bargain bin rip off of said film. Although this is based off of the 2015 book by Tim Lebbon, the timing of this movie adaptation is still a little bit suspicious. The plot feels oddly similar to A Quiet Place too, with our main protagonist being a young deaf girl, who is used to living in silence, while her family must adapt and find a quiet place, to avoid attracting the hell bats. We could point fingers all day though, one may say A Quiet Place is actually a rip off of The Silence, since the book come first, etc. It's just something that bugged me while watching this I suppose. I think The Silence's depiction of being deaf is far less immersive too, our main protagonist doesn't really act like a real life deaf person, she speaks perfectly normal and rarely uses sign language. To be honest, I almost forgot she even was deaf, by the time I reached the ending. This film appears to be on a lower budget too, with plenty of obvious CGI and dull looking sets. The acting is serviceable, but nothing Oscar worthy in my opinion. Ultimately though, these are small nitpicks that don't take away too much from my overall enjoyment of the film. The Silence is still a very fun rollercoster of horror and thrills!

My favorite twist in this movie, is how our heroes bump into a creepy doomsday cult, who ultimately become the true villains of this story. Although this may sound like a cliché (which it definitely is), The Silence pulls this off rather well, as the cult leader is one terrifying weirdo! He has this friendly persona at first, but refuses to take no for an answer. As the conflict between him and our group escalate, you can see how this once peaceful, yet pushy man, eventually begins to snap, becoming more creepy and invasive, leading up to a truly intense and dramatic finale. He gives off Agent Smith vibes (from The Matrix), which I absolutely adore and when our protagonist's father defends his family against him, it is so tense because they need to remain quiet during this battle, to avoid getting eaten alive by the hell bats high above them, who are thankfully distracted due to the on-going thunderstorm. Although I was rarely scared while watching The Silence, it was still a very thrilling ride, where danger was felt around every corner!

The Silence isn't a flawless horror film, but I really enjoyed it. Ultimately it isn't as strong as A Quiet Place in my opinion, but it certainly has it's charms. Working better as a modern remake of The Birds, this film is definitely worth your time! Therefore, I'm giving The Silence a 4 star rating.