Week 12 - Thriller film analysis

A Quiet Place (2018) Analysis - Thriller Film

A quiet place (2018) is a film in thriller, horror, sci-fi, and drama genres. The outline story is about a family that have to live in silence to avoid mysterious creatures that have ultra-sensitive ear. The monsters will immediately hunt them if they make even any footstep sound or little whisper. With many conditions like pregnancy and having children, they have to survive from this situation for search a way to fight back.

Possible target audience of thriller films

Most target audience of this kind of films are over 18 years old, as some scenes may include disturbing contents which are not suitable for younger age. The genre might aim at male audiences more than females; however, it depends on their preferences. Despite ages and genders, other factors are not that considerable.

Lacey’s Repertoire of Elements Analysis Grid

Setting

The main settings of this film are forest, basement, abandoned town and houses, countryside, and farmland. These settings are dense and dark, which can drive thrilling feelings well. It can blur objects and characters which makes the audiences don’t know what will happen next. For the forest, because it can have unexpected things to happen all the time by both nature and creatures, it’s a suitable place for performing escaping and hunting. Houses and towns can also be a good place to thrill the audiences out as they are our everyday places. Who will know that the most secured place can also be the most dangerous place too?

Characters

The main characters of this film are Evelyn, the pregnant woman, Regen, the deaf girl, Marcus, the boy, and Lee, the strong man.

In thrilling movie, females and children are often stereotyped as the victim and need to be saved, so does this film, but they also add pregnancy to add more obstacles to the character. In opposite, males are often presented as leader and are physically strong. The husband in this film always plays the role as the protector of the family and even sacrifice himself to protect the weak one. These are the common stereotypes in thrilling films, however, the characters who really solve the issues are the rest of the survivors who are protected throughout the story. What makes this film’s characters differ from its generic stereotype from this genre is that they are all skilled in different abilities, which leads to cooperative help to solve the problem, not just dividing the role into leader and follower.

For aliens, the antagonist, they are designed to be blind and have ultra-sensitive ear, which are opposed with pregnant woman, who can give birth at any time, and children, who are hard to controlled with their loudness and stubbornness. This increases more obstacles for the protagonist to survive through this thrilling movie.

Narrative events

The narrative events are in linear narrative. Despite some time-skip between a number of years,the rests of the film are in sequences. The film is structured around the group of survivors which are placed in an inevitable danger situation. This kind of narration is quite generic to this genre; however, this film also includes sci-fi and crime narration which is to find a way to solve the issue (kill the alien) too. They don’t just find the way to escape the situation, but to find the way to deal with them too.

Iconography

Most of thriller films contain deadly weapon like knife and guns, so does this film. Objects for hunting and hurting like traps, nails, and obstacles are often placed on the path when the escaping scenes are shown. Sometime the silhouette of aliens or some parts of the body are shown to thrill and give mystery clue to the audiences. Some scenes leave spaces over the head or the shoulder of the character to make us feel like there are something stalk or follow them after. As mentioned in setting, they use the forest to create a sense of feeling lost and unescapable for the characters too. Moreover, malfunctioned devices are often used in the scene when things go wrong to rush the character between life and death too.

Style

Most of the scenes use low key lights and often shot over the character’s shoulder to show negative spaces. These techniques create mystery, lost, and serious feeling to the situations. Some shots are also used film noir and sci-fi lighting to highlight sub-genres of the film. Chasing camera technique is used when showing running scenes of the character. Most sound effects of this film are the diegetic sound of little action. This intend to squeeze the atmosphere to be more serious and intense in the concept of a really quiet place that even the sounds of little step can be heard clearly. Still, more intense sound fxs are added when it comes to the climax scene.

Conclusion

In conclusion, lots of generic factors in thriller films like the stereotype of characters (victims and protectors), storyline, lighting, and shown of weapons. These are the basic elements for a film to be recognizable as thriller. Still, there are some unique traits like the serious usage of diegetic sound from every little action and the equal represent of characters’ importance. Every main characters find some ways to help each other, not dividing into leader and follower alone.