John Krasinski directs himself, Emily Blunt and Millicent Simmonds in this survival horror where a family try to stay completely silent so as to evade sound seeking monsters who have decimated America.

A good solid thrill-ride. Bolstered by uniformly excellent performances (Blunt and newcomer Simmonds duke it out for top honours), a Spielbergian sense of confident visual storytelling and a well defined level of threat. The opening salvo lays out how brutal the consequences of making a sound in this universe are, and exactly how far the filmmakers are willing to go when putting this beautiful family through the grinder. The creature design is strong, about as good as CGI grotesques get. The moments where we hear things from the deaf daughter’s aural POV have a vivid true silence to them. In a world where everyone is trying not to make a sound, she is sometimes dangerously oblivious to her sonic footprint. It makes the toughest, most likeable player, harshly vulnerable. One quibble, the actual action set pieces are a little too brief – a Hitchcock, Craven or DePalma might keep the jeopardy churning at the clan for a few extra moments before resolving each attack.

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7