Horror does seem to be the one genre left that can get away with selling its film on their gimmicks. It seems the consensus is that the gimmick doesn’t necessarily imply a bad flick, as directors get to be creative in how they scare us and create tension. And This Guy has never felt tension like he did watching A Quiet Place last night. Rarely will a theatre audience be joined in absolute silence throughout an entire film. Not out of basic decency, but out of sheer terror.

They hear you. They Hunt you.

A Quiet Place finds our world overrun. Creatures have wiped out most of humanity. The few who survivors live their lives one day at a time, as silently as possible. These monsters hunt by sound, and they hear EVERYTHING. The Abbott family have made a home in an old farmhouse, where they prepare for the birth of another child. But after some unfortunate incidents, the creatures seem to be aware of their quarry’s presence, and they’re listening for the slightest slip up, so they can swarm in, eradicate the last vermin in this world they’ve made theirs.

The movie sets the tone pretty friggin’ quick. This Guy doesn’t like spoilers, but A Quiet Place starts out with terrific atmosphere, bringing you slowly into this broken world. The family scavenges a pharmacy for medicine, before departing down a sand covered path back home. And then the tone takes a sharp left turn, and shows you exactly how unforgiving the world has become. From there on, it never lets up. This Guy and every other person in the audience sat there, afraid to move, to snack, to breathe. We sat there, terrified of what was lurking in the woods, and how fast and deadly it could rush toward our helpless heroes. John “Big Tuna” Krasinski directs (and helped write) the film to damn near perfection. It’s a strong departure from any of his previous work, but he shows an excellent talent for milking every ounce of tension from every second of screen time. And when the creatures finally emerge from the wild to hunt down every sound they hear, A Quiet Place becomes a showcase of great monster horror.

In addition to directing duties, Krasinski stars as the father of the Abbott family, struggling every day to keep his children and pregnant wife safe. Real life wife, Emily Blunt, plays Evelyn, and the two of them bring their real life chemistry to the film. The entire cast play off each other terrifically. The few moments of family time we get to see, the only reprieve from the constant assault of tension, feel real and honest. And this is particularly impressive given the nature of the film’s communication.

“Who are we if we can’t protect them?”

The Abbotts’ deaf daughter, Regan (played by actually deaf actress, Millicent Simmonds) gave the family a reason to know sign language when the creatures arrived on their world. And sign language makes up nearly the entirety of the film’s dialogue. There are only two scenes with significant dialogue, and they are both poignant, and made all the more powerful by their scarcity.

We’re less than four months into 2018, but A Quiet Place is already firmly in place as the best horror film of the year, and it’ll be tough to beat. Jim Halpert has left his desk in Scranton, and unleashed something dark, twisted, and delightfully terrifying. The tension is constant, and the lack of sound is as deafening as a blaring siren in any action blockbuster. Real horror, with real performances, and real emotion can be tremendous cinema, and A Quiet Place is tremendous cinema.