A Quiet Place 3 Where To Watch

[Yoshi Heffernan]

Itmay not have been planned as a franchise, but the "A Quiet Place" universe is expanding rapidly. Beginning with an inventive script from writer Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, with a lot of help from director John Krasinski, the 2018 sci-fi horror flick became a much bigger hit than anyone expected it to be. Seriously, on paper it was a tough sell to picture Jim from "The Office" directing a killer monster movie. Yet, that's precisely what he did, paving the way for not just a sequel, but a full-on franchise.

First, let's go over the release order for these films. It all starts with 2018's "A Quiet Place" (which itself, in some ways, actually started with "Jurassic Park" in 1993 as a single scene in Steven Spielberg's classic blockbuster inspired Krasinski in crafting his film). From there, we got a direct sequel and, more recently, a prequel set in New York City. All laid out in order, here's what that looks like:

Now, for those out there who still wish to watch the films in chronological order, that's quite easy to do. "Day One" would be first, then roll into the first two films in order. The only caveat there is that "A Quiet Place Part II" does have an opening scene that takes place on the first day of the alien invasion, so if someone were inclined to get really clever, they could watch "Day One," then the opening scene from "Part II," then go back to the first movie, then the rest of the sequel. That's a bit messy though, admittedly. To keep it simpler for the average viewer:

Trying to remain silent in the cacophony of New York City, whose background noise averages over 90 decibels (the measure of a constant human scream), would be a nearly insurmountable obstacle to overcome, especially when trying to flee from extraterrestrials tuned in to the drop of a pin.

This whispering dilemma witnessed in Paramount Pictures' newly released prequel, "A Quiet Place: Day One," carries over into Saber Interactive's upcoming video game inspired by the smash sci-fi horror franchise. In "A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead," brave players will stumble through the disturbing apocalyptic nightmare of human civilization, using their wits and ingenuity to survive while gathering tools and food.

It's an unsettling first-person, single-player game based squarely in the "A Quiet Place" monsterverse co-created by director John Krasinski, where blind alien berserkers fortified with super-sensitive hearing invade Earth during a meteor shower and go on a wild killing spree, attacking anything making a sound.

The harrowing game's brand-new storyline is set in the same upended world as 2018's "A Quiet Place," 2021's "A Quiet Place: Part II," and the latest spinoff prequel, "A Quiet Place: Day One." But this time the slaughter takes place in a different city, centering on a lone asthmatic protagonist wandering the silent wastelands.

This scary survival horror diversion hails from Saber Interactive, the same publisher currently putting the final touches on the upcoming "Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2." "The Road Ahead's" spooky reveal teaser will remind avid gamers of the dark confines and first-person survival experience of titles like "Alien: Isolation," and the obvious comparisons are actually a great compliment to its style and tone.

Jeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Jeff SprySocial Links NavigationContributing WriterJeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters.

Today, I've been invited by the film's PR team to watch a clip of the movie in some very appropriate surroundings: an anechoic chamber. For those of you who aren't acoustic engineers, that's a room designed to absorb all sound so you can experience perfect silence. The silence is so complete that some people can only stand to be inside an anechoic chamber for a short time.

Walking up to the engineering department of University College London, where this anechoic room is located, I begin to notice the level of everyday noise city dwellers block out without realising. Traffic roars dully on the nearby Euston Road. Sirens and horns add piercing top notes. Building sites on every street provide their own cacophony of clanging metal, jarring shouts and stuttering tools.

The noise continues as a dull background thrum even in the midst of the university campus, where the anechoic chamber looks like a small shed jammed between the academic buildings. I hesitate while stepping inside the chamber: it's a very small space, and every surface is covered in intimidating wedges pointing into the room. It doesn't help that the chamber is lit only by a red light bulb, echoing scenes from the film and turning it into a nightmarish dungeon of spikes and shadows and dread.

As I step on a metal grate just about big enough for a battered armchair, I take note that the ceiling, walls and even the floor are full of pointy things. "Don't touch the walls," intones technician Andrew Clark as he shuts me in. For a moment I have a vision of reaching out a trembling hand and then being absorbed into the walls to forever silently scream along with the souls of anyone else who dared to mess with Andrew's acoustics. But then he explains he just doesn't want me to get glass fibers on my hands, because it'd hurt. Fair enough.

The chamber is actually a sound-absorbing box within another box, so the Euston Road traffic and sirens and building sites could be on another world. And the glass fibre wedges absorb sound completely by bouncing any soundwaves into each other, so when I click my fingers and clap my hands there's no echo.

Later, back in the hustle and bustle and noise of the city, I sat down with Professor John Drever, an expert in acoustic ecology and sound art, to discuss what I'd just experienced. He pointed out that hearing is crucial from an extremely early point in our lives -- before we're born, in fact. "In the fluid in the womb you're in this world of vibration, with your mother's voice reverberating into this watery world that you live in. So even as an embryo, you already have this rich sonic experience of touch and vibration."

Inside the anechoic chamber I watched A Quiet Place's opening scene, in which our heroes creep around in near-silence. The enormously atmospheric movie is a triumph of sound design, taking us into the heads of the characters and wringing unbearable tension by taking away the information we're used to getting from our hearing.

"In cinematic sound design the tiniest sound can be superpowerful, used in the right way," explains Drever. A Quiet Place is a perfect example of how nuanced our hearing -- and our reactions to what we hear -- can be. "The natural response to a loud sound is fight or flight. It's a hormonal response. But in relative silence you're listening for tiny signs," says Drever. As an example, he recalls how the tiniest creak of a floorboard could wake his sleeping kids as he crept past. "How does the baby know at that age that they're being abandoned," he ponders, "or think they're being abandoned?"

Inside the anechoic chamber it's the absence of sounds around you that can be alarming. The chamber was originally built as a fancy recording studio for capturing perfectly clear speech, but it's now used for acoustic experiments including measuring head-related transfer functions -- the scientific name for how our ears, sinuses and other facial furniture affect our perception of sound.

The positioning of our ears on either side of our head allows us to pinpoint where a noise is coming from, and the echoes we hear help us get a sense of the size of the space around us. Without this information about our environment, Drever points out, absolute silence can, instead of soothing us, make us hypervigilant while we hunt for signals. Indeed, cut off from the clues my ears usually give about what's behind me, I found myself glancing over my shoulder to check visually instead.

After I was done snapping my fingers, clapping, and talking out loud to hear how it sounded without an echo, I settled into the silence. I hoped I could enjoy some meditative retreat from the cacophony of the city outside.

And I did find it fairly soothing at first. After a while, however, I started to notice a strange whistling. There was a slight rhythmic pulse to it, which must have been my heartbeat. With no other sounds to distract me or mask this odd noise, which I've never noticed before, I began to focus on it. The slight pulsing reminded me of the metallic howl-around you get from speaker feedback.

Fortunately, as the whistling noise built to a screaming in my ears, the movie started. After watching the clip I left the chamber to chat to Drever, where the soft cacophony of the city once again masked what I now realise is hearing damage.

As Drever points out, tinnitus can be more than just a mild irritation. "Hearing is very closely connected to the limbic system, which is about emotion," he explains. "So you find that when people suffer from tinnitus their limbic system is continuously stressed -- they're in a perpetual state of anxiety, and that can be quite traumatic."

If you're worried about tinnitus or hearing damage, you can find more information and get help from the British Tinnitus Association, the American Tinnitus Association or Better Hearing Australia. Here's a good primer on hearing loss.

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