Sensory deprivation and spine-chilling scares: 10 movies like ‘A Quiet Place’
As one of the most original, inventive, and nerve-shredding original horror movies to be released in years, it was inevitable that John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place would be embraced with open arms by a studio that had just stumbled upon its next lucrative franchise.
There are plans afoot for the post-apocalyptic saga that pits a dwindling number of human survivors against creatures who hunt by sound to span for at least four movies, if not many more beyond that, but it’s not as if A Quiet Place is an entity unto itself.
It’s a top-tier tale of terror without a doubt, but there are plenty more films that rely on either sensory deprivation, ambitious world-building, ingenious concepts, and an eerie sense of atmosphere well worth seeking down and watching if Krasinski’s phenomenal feature created a desire for more.
Fortunately, there are ten such titles perfectly tailored to follow up on that exact fix, with A Quiet Place boasting a number of spiritual contemporaries, successors, and bedfellows that tick many of the same boxes.
Sensory-deprived horror movies like A Quiet Place
Not to state the blindingly obvious, but the first port of call for any viewer hoping to experience something as similar to A Quiet Place as possible is the sequel, which manages to broaden the scope of the world while maintaining focus on the Abbott family. It may not be quite as good as its predecessor, but it’s a superior sequel compared to the reams of identikit horror follow-ups that arrive regularly.
Even though it was adapted from the novel of the same name published before A Quiet Place, John R. Leonetti’s The Silence was nonetheless branded a rip-off by many unfamiliar with the source material. It’s easy to see why considering it revolves around a deaf teenager trying to survive in a world plagued by monsters who stalk their prey by sound, which also makes it a fitting companion piece.
If silence isn’t the answer, then Netflix’s breakout sensation Bird Box walks a slightly different path by taking place in a world where making direct eye contact with its sinister beasts is a death sentence, while Fede Álvarez’s Don’t Breathe finds Stephen Lang’s blind villain dealing with a home invasion by mastering his other senses and bludgeoning most of the culprits to death.
One of the most accomplished PG-13 horrors of recent years, David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out is comparable to A Quiet Place in the pitch black, with Teresa Palmer’s Rebecca being haunted by a supernatural entity that can only strike where there’s no light to be found.
Eerily atmospheric movies like A Quiet Place
A Quiet Place thrives on its uneasy sense of atmosphere, and while they don’t necessarily revolve around fearsome creatures seeking their pound of flesh, sometimes the things that remain unseen are infinitely more terrifying.
Danny Boyle’s influential zombie flick 28 Days Later opens in a stark, deserted, and hauntingly empty London, with the stillness quickly and rudely interrupted by sprinting hordes of the undead. For a movie that delivers one of the hardest punches to the gut in modern cinema, then the final scene of Frank Darabont’s relentlessly intense The Mist speaks for itself.
If A Quiet Place took place in the deepest reaches of the ocean, then there’s a high chance it would look a lot like Underwater, which forces Kristen Stewart’s mechanical engineer to traverse the briny depths to save herself when monsters launch a nail-biting assault on a research and drilling rig, complete with a Lovecraftian twist.
It doesn’t even venture outdoors until the very end, but surprise sequel 10 Cloverfield Lane carries the same air of claustrophobia as A Quiet Place, and Argentinian gem Terrified more than lives up to its name when a Buenos Aires neighbourhood is plagued by traumatising otherworldly entities.
10 movies like A Quiet Place:
- A Quiet Place Part II (John Krasinski, 2020)
- Don’t Breathe (Fede Álvarez, 2016)
- Lights Out (David F. Sandberg, 2016)
- Bird Box (Susanne Bier, 2018)
- The Silence (John R. Leonetti, 2019)
- Terrified (Demián Rugna, 2018)
- 10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg, 2016)
- The Mist (Frank Darabont, 2007)
- 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)
- Underwater (William Eubank, 2020)
