John Krasinski has officially returned to the world he helped establish as he just dropped the first set photo from A Quiet Place Part III. The actor, writer and director shared a new set photo from the upcoming horror movie release on his official social media account, and while the image itself is pretty simple, it was more than enough to get fans and some The Office alums making noise in the comments.

Krasinski posted a photo of an official production slate on the ground, with the words "Part III" clearly visible on his Instagram account. Behind it, out of focus, is a large stone archway, giving the whole thing a very ominous, very “something horrible is about to happen in a beautiful place” kind of energy. His caption, which you can see below, was short and sweet: “Here. We. Go! #Part III.”

That’s all he really needed to say. After A Quiet Place became one of the best modern horror movie surprises back in 2018, and A Quiet Place Part II expanded the world in 2021, fans have been waiting to see where Krasinski would take the mainline story next. We’ve had A Quiet Place: Day One, which stepped away from the Abbott family to explore the early days of the invasion, but Part III, with Krasinski returning in the director’s chair, means that the core lane of the franchise is back on track.

As exciting as the post and the announcement from the director are, the best part of the post is the comment section. Let’s break down some of the best responses.

Fans And Office Alums Were All Over The Comments

There were plenty of straightforward reactions from fans and friends, including some familiar Hollywood names and one sweet response from an Office alum. Anyone who caught the original run, or has revisited it countless times with a Peacock subscription, knows Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer from the beloved NBC sitcom. The redheaded funny woman showed up to support her former co-star, and she wasn’t the only one. Here are some of the standout reactions:

• @therealkateflannery: “So proud of you and your good work. ❤️❤️❤️❤️”
• @joshgad: “👏👏👏👏”
• @realmichaelkelly: “Congratulations buddy!!! Can Not Wait!!”
• @tom_cullen: “Yes John!!! 🔥”
• @gennyyy.b: “AHHH MY FAV MOVIE SERIES! You could make a million parts and I’d sit and watch all of them!”
• @556.brand0n: “Didn’t you die in the first one? Im so confused”
• @paramountscares: “🤫🤫🤫”

That last one from Paramount Scares is a nice touch, because if any franchise has earned a studio account responding with shushing emojis, it’s this one.

But because this is John Krasinski, the Office crowd was never going to let the moment pass quietly. Fans flooded the comments with Jim Halpert and Dunder Mifflin reaction memes, which somehow fit a Quiet Place announcement better than they have any right to. A few of the funniest included:

• @canaancox posting the classic “OH, MY GOD! OK, IT’S HAPPENING!” panic GIF.
• @sanjeev_sid_ram sharing Jim smiling through the blinds, the universal image for “I am watching this development very closely.”
• @actortorilane posting Michael Scott’s “OKAY, IT’S HAPPENING!” reaction.
• @jaumesegovia dropping a Jim “OH” reaction GIF.
• @feelynnelisah using Jim’s delighted, wide-eyed face.
• @heres_my_account_2003 posting Jim’s “YES!” fist-pump moment.
• @__e.m.o._19 sharing a GIF of Dwight watching from a car, which is somehow both unrelated and exactly right.

It’s funny how cleanly Krasinski’s two biggest pop-culture identities still collide. He’s the filmmaker behind one of the tensest horror franchises of the last decade, but he’s also still Jim from The Office, the guy whose face has become internet shorthand for basically every possible human reaction.

The funniest actual question in the comments might be the fan asking whether Krasinski died in the first movie. Technically, yes, Lee Abbott did not make it out of A Quiet Place alive. But Krasinski has remained one of the main creative forces behind the series, so his return on Part III does not necessarily mean Lee is coming back from the cornfield beyond. Though, honestly, in horror, never say never. If slashers can survive everything short of a tax audit, a flashback is not exactly impossible.

For now, Krasinski has only given fans a slate, a location and five words. But for A Quiet Place fans, that was plenty loud enough. Unfortunately, the next installment won’t make the 2026 movie calendar, as the beloved horror franchise is set to return to theaters next year on July 30, 2027.

It’s been five years since A Quiet Place Part II hit theaters, and fans are champing at the bit for the next installment in John Krasinski’s wildly popular horror franchise. At the end of Part II, the Abbott Family narrowly escaped death and were forced to start over once more, but were also a step closer to understanding the murderous alien species with impeccable hearing. There are still a lot of loose ends to tie up in the since-confirmed A Quiet Place Part III, and Krasinski’s wife, actress Emily Blunt, revealed the amusing way Krasinski’s writing process has impacted their home life.

Blunt, who also stars in the Quiet Place franchise as Evelyn Abbott, recently appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and confirmed her husband was hard at work developing the upcoming horror film, which is slated for release in 2027. However, the Devil Wears Prada 2 actress admitted Krasinski’s intense creative methods have been driving her crazy at home:

The image of John Krasinski standing in front of a Quiet Place crime board of sticky notes does make me laugh. I would be a little overwhelmed looking at it, though. Of course, all the sticky notes probably only make sense to him, and I could see why it would drive Blunt a little nuts. What if she goes to get a cup of coffee in the morning and a note about a major character’s death is stuck to the cabinet?

I can’t imagine Blunt avoiding spoilers entirely though, with the writing process happening under her own roof. Besides, the couple are an excellent creative duo. It would make sense for the Smashing Machine actress to be a part of the process. On that note, Blunt revealed Krasinski does sometimes use her as a sounding board:

A Quiet Place was Krasinski's first foray into directing, and Blunt previously revealed her one moment of doubt before her husband started directing. However, Krasinski’s assurance was not in poor faith, and AQP is now considered by many to be one of the best horror films of all time.

I’m just glad to hear he’s writing A Quiet Place III’s script though, and that we finally have confirmation of production starting soon. By the time Part III will come out next summer, it will have been nearly a decade since the first installment, and eight years since A Quiet Place II filmed in 2019.

Krasinski has confirmed the returns of Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds, along with newcomers Jack O’Connell and Katy O’Brien. There's still a big question in regard to how the IF director will address the stretch of time between Part II and Part III. Both Simmonds and Jupe, who play the Abbott kids Marcus and Regan, have grown up quite a bit in the time between the two films. So a major time jump may be necessary.

Given the Abbotts successfully found the Death Angel’s weakness, there is hope that A Quiet Place Part III could open with them living in a new island safe haven. However, they're not out of the woods yet, as high frequency sound doesn’t kill the aliens, only incapacitates them. There is still so much we don’t know about these other-worldly creatures, who can hear, but not see, and the prequel, A Quiet Place: Day, One only sparked more questions. Hopefully, John Krasinski has some answers on those sticky notes of his.

A Quiet Place Part III opens in theaters on July 30, 2027. In the meantime, stream Krasinski and Emily Blunt's work in the first two movies by streaming them with a Paramount+ subscription.

The horror genre can't stop won't stop, to the delight of fans like me. Some of the best horror movies from recent years have been scary movies, and Ryan Coogler's Sinners even managed to win big at the Oscars this year. Actor Jack O'Connell got a ton of love for playing Irish vampire Remmick, and then played another villain in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Now he's got another upcoming horror movie role, and it's an A+ franchise that I can't wait to see him in.

O'Connell is becoming a bonafide Scream King lately, thanks to his roles in a number of horror franchises. Luckily for fans, he's got another huge gig coming up. John Krasinski recently revealed the cast for A Quiet Place Part III, and the Sinners star is on the list. Check it out below:

Take my money. The Quiet Place movies (which are streaming with a Paramount+ subscription) are modern horror classics, including the prequel Day One. Fans are eager to catch up with the Abbott family following A Quiet Place Part II's ending, and now we know some of the new faces that will show up in the developing threequel. Hopefully we get more information about that project sooner rather than later.

Krasinski shared the above post to hist 4.8 million followers on Instagram, and the comments section is popping off. Obviously the franchise's stars like Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy are listed, but perhaps more intriguing are the newcomers. In addition to Jack O'Connell, this announcement also confirmed the casting of Pet Sematary's Jason Clarke and Love Lies Bleeding's Katy O'Brian. I can't wait to find out that this trio of actors will be up to in the next Quiet Place film.

Given how wildly successful Sinners was, O'Connell's starpower has been steadily growing. Fans were delighted when he popped up during Sinners' Oscar performance, even rocking Remmick's vampire fangs during the event (and on the carpet). So horror fans are likely losing their minds over the idea of him in A Quiet Place Part III. Talk about some inspired casting.

In addition to Sinners, O'Connell got to be another terrifying villain in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Funny enough that movie featured Cillian Murphy's return to the franchise, and now they'll both appear in A Quiet Place Part III. So that's yet another reason why fans of scary movies will be invested in John Krasinski's forthcoming threequel.

Along with the casting news, Krasinski also revealed when the third Quiet Place movie will hit theaters: July 30th 2027. That's more than a year away, but it's still thrilling. Of course, hardcore moviegoers probably wish it was on the 2026 movie release list.

Emily Blunt has done everything from fighting alien invaders as a supersoldier to stepping into the iconic shoes of Mary Poppins. However, among her best films, one of her most beloved roles remains Evelyn Abbott in A Quiet Place, the smash-hit horror movie she made with her husband, John Krasinski. The collaboration went on to define a major chapter in both their careers, proving that a marriage can survive not only Hollywood but also high-pressure filmmaking. Yet Blunt recently revealed the process started with a surprisingly candid (and hilarious) conversation about whether they could actually pull it off.

The Devil Wears Prada veteran reflected on the high-wire act of working opposite her husband for the first time while he simultaneously stepped into the director’s chair. The actress admitted to Elle she wasn’t sure how smooth the experience would be, and before filming began, she sat her husband down to make sure they both understood what they were getting into.

Even Krasinski’s own wife had questions about his jump from The Office to directing, but, as she describes, Blunt was impressed, watching Krasinski step into the role of director with unexpected confidence. Despite the film’s difficult conditions—long stretches of silence, physical tension, and an entire emotional arc communicated through looks—the pair found a rhythm that worked.

Still, the English A-lister also acknowledged the elephant in the room: What if working with your spouse goes badly? She added it could have been "an absolute disaster."

They indeed respected each other’s work, and thankfully, it paid off in a big way as A Quiet Place became a global hit. The movie showcased the real-world couple’s chemistry and revealed a new side of the longtime sitcom star as a filmmaker, earning him industry-wide respect and spawning a full-fledged franchise, with a recently announced fourth film in the series on the way. And the Smashing Machine actress makes it clear she saw that transformation firsthand, just as she’s witnessed in co-stars like Tom Cruise, Ryan Gosling, and Dwayne Johnson as they reinvented themselves in front of her.

If working with her husband for the first time came with its own nerves, it also gave audiences one of the most effective, emotionally grounded performances in modern horror. Thankfully, Krasinski did not think she was “really s--t.” In fact, the movie proved the exact opposite, as together, they’re an undeniable creative force—on-screen and off.

Emily Blunt and John Krasinski’s on-screen collaboration is set to continue as the fourth movie in the series, A Quiet Place: Part III was recently announced. Fans already have questions after A Quiet Place Part II, and they'll finally be answered when we get the next chapter on July 9th, 2027.

I can say from experience that, in my opinion, some of the best romantic relationships are shared by two people who love sharing moments of chills and thrills with each other. In that same vein, I have a lot of respect and admiration for couples who have joined forces to create moments of chills and thrills for others, such as the stars and co-producers of Together, Dave Franco and Alison Brie.

The husband and wife duo are far from the first real-life couple to star in a horror movie together, and, because of the genuine onscreen chemistry they bring to the new 2025 movie, I sure hope they are not the last. In fact, let's begin my little breakdown of notable Hollywood power couples who made some great scary date movies over the years with the stars of Together.

Dave Franco And Alison Brie (Together)

Recent releases like the Oscar-winning The Substance and The Ugly Stepsister have paved the way for a golden era of body horror movies that continues with writer and director Michael Shanks' Together. The new horror movie stars the aforementioned Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, who find themselves growing too close for comfort when a mysterious force causes them to be involuntarily bound by flesh.

Echoing Eric Eisenberg's Together review, Franco and Brie portray the troubling circumstances of their characters' relationship, even those existing before the supernatural starts to make things worse, so flawlessly that you can't help but wonder about the state of their actual marriage. Of course, by the end, it becomes clear they possess more than enough chemistry to make this bizarre and unsettling, but also funny and even heartwarming thriller a satisfying and touching experience.

John Krasinski And Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place)

I believe 2018's A Quiet Place boasts one of the most astonishingly unique concepts for an alien invasion movie I have ever seen: a world overrun with malevolent, non-seeing extra-terrestrials, forcing the remains of humanity to live in silence. However, I also believe the key to its unnerving effectiveness lies in the lead performances by John Krasinski (who also co-writes and directs) and Emily Blunt.

As Lee and Evelyn Abbott, the beloved power couple, who wed in 2010 and have since had two children, deliver a compelling and authentic sense of devotion to one another and desperation to protect their family at all costs. Had Krasinski not cast his own wife to play his onscreen partner, the film's man-versus-monster suspense could have easily lacked the breathless urgency that made it an instant sci-fi movie classic.

Jeff Goldblum And Geena Davis (The Fly)

Together is not the first body horror flick to star a real-life couple, but it might be the first to involve both romantic leads experiencing the same grotesque situation first-hand. In David Cronenberg's 1986 version of The Fly, Jeff Goldblum's Dr. Seth Brundle slowly becomes a half-human, half-insect hybrid while the love of his life, Ronnie Quaife (Geena Davis), only witnesses the dehumanizing process in shock and heartbreak.

Goldblum and Davis were engaged at the time they shot the revered horror movie remake, having actually met on the set of a 1985 horror-comedy movie called Transylvania 6-5000, and tied the knot the following year, only to split in 1990, according to People. Their genuine affection for each other, which appears to have survived their divorce, based on their 2024 SAG Awards appearance, explodes on the screen, cementing The Fly as one of horror's most unforgettable romantic tragedies.

David Arquette And Courtney Cox (The Scream Movies)

Watching the Scream movies in order is fascinating in the way the cleverly meta slasher franchise traces two notable timelines in pop culture. The subsequent films not only illustrate the modern evolution of the horror genre, but also that of the relationship between two of its most famous stars, David Arquette and Courteney Cox.

The Friends cast member, playing journalist Gale Weathers, and the Dewey Riley actor met on the set of the 1996 original, were dating while they shot the sequel (after some encouragement from Wes Craven), and were married during the third one, but had split before reprising their characters as husband and wife in 2011's Scream 4. However, Cox has since referred to Arquette as her "best friend "(according to People), and that shows in their willingness to reunite and play their roles as divorcees in 2022's Scream, which saw Dewey succumb to Ghostface's knife. However, Arquette has somehow been cast in Scream 7, so it looks like the reign of Dewey and Gale is, thankfully, not over just yet.

Freddie Prinze Jr. And Sarah Michelle Gellar (I Know What You Did Last Summer)

Scream is not the only '90s slasher movie favorite from which romance bloomed behind the scenes. In I Know What You Did Last Summer, Freddie Prinze Jr.'s Ray Bronson may have been dating Jennifer Love Hewitt's Julie James, but the actor really had his eye on their co-star, Sarah Michelle Gellar.

After falling in love on the set of the 1997 thriller, they would later wed in 2002, which is the same year they shared a kiss as Fred and Daphne in the first live-action Scooby-Doo movie. Since Gellar's Helen did not survive the first Summer, the couple was not able to reunite for the arguably more fun 1998 sequel, but she would make a surprise cameo in the 2025 reboot, achieved through a dream sequence, that also allowed her and Prinze the opportunity to have a fun family trip in Australia, where the legacyquel as filmed, as she shared with the country's iteration of Today.

Eli Roth And Lorenza Izzo (Aftershock)

Until their divorce in 2018 after four years of marriage, horror multi-hyphenate Eli Roth and actor and model Lorenza Izzo were one of the genre's top power couples, collaborating on projects like Netflix's Hemlock Grove, The Green Inferno, Knock Knock, and The House with a Clock in Its Walls. Their personal and professional relationship began with a disaster thriller from 2012 called Aftershock.

In addition to co-writing and producing the thriller from director Nicolás López, Roth stars alongside Izzo as survivors of a deadly earthquake in Chile struggling to make it out of the ruined city safely. The Chilean-born actor shared with WWD that she was cast in a leading role when Roth discovered she could speak English and, after spending the entire shoot together and boasting a chemistry that comes through effectively in the film, they became more than scene partners.

It is celebrity couples like these, in addition to the likes of Stranger Things' Charlie Heaton and Natalia Dyer, who prove to me that sometimes the key to a great horror movie, especially ones in which romance plays a pivotal role, is casting two people whose love offscreen is so strong, it's scary.

The horror genre continues to thrive, to the joy of fans like myself. One of the best horror movies from recent memory was John Krasinski's A Quiet Place, which has been expanded into a bonafide franchise. The actor/filmmaker just confirmed when we'll see Part III, and I have one major hope for the threequel. Yes, I'm crossing my fingers.

Fans have been eager for this information after A Quiet Place Part II's ending, which left things off on a bit of a cliffhanger. But it's been a long time coming, with the franchise instead expanding with the prequel/spinoff A Quiet Place: Day One. Krasinski posted a date announcement for the threequel on Instagram, check it out below:

It's really happening. Fans have questions after A Quiet Place Part II, and they'll finally be answered when we get the third chapter on July 9th 2027. I'm eager to see what come next for the Abbott family, I'm holding out hope that Joseph Quinn's Eric from Day One gets to pop up sometime throughout its runtime.

I know, this might might be a long shot, especially as Quinn's star power rises thanks to The Fantastic Four: First Steps. But since Day One's ending saw him leaving New York with Djimon Hounsou's Henri, who met the Abbotts in Part II, it doesn't seem impossible.

It's more than possible that this crossover won't happen, and that John Krasinski isn't invested in creating an interconnected shared universe for his horror franchise. But that is the way that studios seem to be focusing their content, so we'll have to wait and see what sort of talks are happening behind the scenes. But with A Quiet Place Part III finally given a concrete release date, the threequel has never felt more real.

Day One might have helped to satiate the fandom, but it's already been quite some time before A Quiet Place Part II (which is streaming with a Paramount+ subscription) hit theaters back in May of 2021. By the time the third movie arrives in theaters it'll be a whopping 7 years in between movies. We'll just have to wait and see if this affects audience enthusiasm about the sensory horror property.

While it's taken a while, Deadline confirms that John Krasinski will be back to direct, produce, and write A Quiet Place Part III. No casting has been announced, but fans are expecting the Abbott family to return, played by Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe. Cillian Murphy's Emmett also survived the sequel, and would presumably be back to continue the story. As for Joseph Quinn's character from Day One, that's anyone's guess.

A Quiet Place Part III is currently expected to arrive in theaters on July 9, 2027. Since it's not even part of the 2026 movie release list, fans are likely going to have to be patient before getting more information.

Movies about extreme survival go back to the dawn of Hollywood. Survival comes in many forms. It could be on a deserted island or a deserted planet. It may be in a jail or as a prisoner of war. There are many ways characters have to survive dangerous and arduous situations, and these movies will leave you white knuckling it until they either escape, get rescued, or perish trying to do either.

The Martian

Matt Damon plays an astronaut exploring Mars when he is accidentally left for dead on the red planet and is forced to find a way to live with no food and limited resources. The Martian has been praised for the science in (most) of the movie, but it's the survival aspect of the movie that really draws fans in.

The Bridge On The River Kwai

How dedicated are you to your country, and what will you endure to keep your pride? The legendary The Bridge On The River Kwai explores just how far a person will go in pursuit of both of those. In extreme conditions, the British prisoners of war go through the worst of everything, extreme heat, fatigue, disease, and torture, cannot keep them from that stiff upper lip attitude of the era.

28 Days Later

Plenty of movies show the extreme and terrifying nature of surviving a dystopian future or a zombie apocalypse. Few do it better than Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. The zombies are the things of nightmares, but somehow the characters keep living in whatever way they are forced to.

12 Years A Slave

There may be no better example of surviving under the most extreme conditions than the era of chattel slavery in 19th-century America. 12 Years A Slave is one of the hardest movies you'll ever watch, and it's also one of the most important movies of the last half century on the subject. Survival doesn't even begin to describe just how hard it was.

Society Of The Snow

The Oscar-nominated Spanish film Society of the Snow tells the now-infamous story of the Uruguayan rugby team who survive a plane crash in the Andes only to be forced into committing cannibalism to survive in the barren wilderness. It's as terrifying as it is inspiring.

Apollo 13

There are only three people in the history of the world who can really understand what it's like to survive a disaster in space. Tragically, most astronauts who have, didn't live to tell the tale. The three astronauts on the Apollo 13 mission did survive, and the 1995 movie starring Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon brings the story to the big screen in amazing fashion.

127 Hours

The true story of Aron Ralston, played by James Franco in 127 Hours, is one of the most visceral ever shown in a movie. It's a story that basically can understand just how harrowing it is. We can all imagine ourselves in a similar situation and wonder just how far we would go to save ourselves. Ralston goes further than most even dream possible, but he made it, and set an example of human endurance few have ever matched.

Schindler's List

Schindler's List is the kind of movie you are amazed by, but might not want to ever watch again. Of course, history is known to everyone who has been to school in the last 80 years, but that doesn't make the movie about the horrors of the Holocaust any easier to take in. It's an amazing movie and one of the scariest stories of survival by an entire group of people ever told. And it's told in honor of the six million who didn't make it.

The Revenant

Being left for dead in the wilderness, getting attacked by hostile people, and surviving a bear mauling certainly qualify a survival story for this list. Those things all happen in The Revenant, the movie that finally won Leonardo DiCaprio the Oscar he's been so deserving of.

Dunkirk

Dunkirk is not just about the survival of the British soldiers on the beaches of the titular town at the outbreak of World War Two, it's about the survival of the whole nation. Had the army not been evacuated, the entire war would likely have gone very differently, not to mention the history of the United Kingdom. Christopher Nolan's masterpiece tells a number of stories of survival, and every one is important.

Cast Away

You knew this one had to be here. It's a story as old as time: a man surviving on a tropical island. It's been in myths and stories for centuries, and there is no better example in modern times than Cast Away. From making fire to building a raft to escape on, this one has it all.

The Shawshank Redemption

Being wrongly accused and convicted of a crime you are not guilty of is a nightmare that many people share. One of the best movies of the '90s, The Shawshank Redemption lets everyone see just how scary and emotional something like that could be. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are amazing in this enduring movie that people will still be watching and relating to for many more generations.

Alien

"In space, no one can hear you scream," is the tagline for one of the most celebrated sci-fi horror movies of all time. Ridley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien is a survivor on her own level throughout the franchise, and it all started with her surviving this movie.

First Blood

Sometimes, survival comes at the expense of the people trying to hunt you, like the cops in First Blood who make the mistake of forcing Green Beret John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) into the woods. Rambo knows how to survive, the cops never stand a chance.

The Pianist

Surviving the Holocaust has rarely been shown on screen as emotionally as it is in The Pianist. Adrien Brody's Oscar-winning performance is as powerful an example of survival as has ever been put on film.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games may not seem like it belongs on the list, but it certainly does. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) has to endure a lot to survive the games, and she thrives when she has to. The movie may be fiction, but the reality doesn't seem impossible, as scary as that is.

A Quiet Place

Surviving is hard enough. Surviving in total silence? Wow, that is truly another level. In A Quiet Place, we learn just how terrifying the silence can be, or really how scary it is when that silence is disturbed. A budding franchise shows just how viscerally people feel the quiet.

Rescue Dawn

Prisoner of war movies are pretty common in Hollywood history. Each brings their own nightmares of survival. Some of the most terrifying come from the Vietnam War, even when the camp is not in Vietnam, as is the case in Rescue Dawn. Christian Bale stars in this movie based on the true story of a pilot shot down over Laos and the horrors he must endure as a POW.

The Road

Cormac McCarthy's excellent (and bleak) book The Road was turned into an even bleaker movie starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee and set in a dystopian future. Human endurance is incredible, as even in the worst kind of situation, some survive. Never underestimate the love a father has for his son.

Unbroken

Angelina Jolie directed one of the most incredible stories of POW survival ever in Unbroken. The true story, about Louis Zamperini surviving multiple ordeals, including a plane crash, 47 days in a raft in the middle of the ocean, and two years in a POW camp. At the camp, he was tortured and used as forced labor. How he survived is nothing less than astonishing. The movie has mixed reviews, but the story is incredible, no matter how it's told.

Lone Survivor

Peter Berg directed Lone Survivor, based on the incredible true story of Marcus Luttrell, who was, as the name of the movie implies, the only survivor in a group of Navy SEALs on a mission in Afghanistan. Mark Wahlberg plays Luttrell, and Taylor Kitsch plays one of the members of his team who was killed. Though the account has been disputed, the movie still serves as a shining example of survival.

Into The Wild

Sometimes, it's human hubris that puts us in a position where we have to survive. Such is the case in the book and the movie Into the Wild. Alexander Supertramp, aka Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch), made his own choices that led him to the desperate situation that eventually, tragically killed him as he tried (and failed) to survive in the Alaskan wilderness.

Gravity

Surviving space is hard enough when you have other people with you. On your own, it's downright impossible. That's the situation Sandra Bullock's character finds herself in in Gravity. It's science fiction, but it's so believable. It's not like Alien or even The Martian, it's much closer to home.

The Diary Of Anne Frank

Maybe the most famous example of survival during the Holocaust is the story of Anne Frank and her family in German-occupied Holland during World War II. The incredible diary the young girl kept has inspired countless people and put a real face on the victims of the Third Reich. The book was turned into a movie nominated for eight Oscars, winning three.

Deliverance

It was supposed to be a relaxing and exciting canoe trip that instead turned into a harrowing story of survival after a group of friends, led by Burt Reynolds in Deliverance, are terrorized by a nasty group of locals who don't want them on the river. The incredibly popular movie is part action/adventure, part horror movie as the campers deal with some really scary actions from those out to kill them.

Alive

A few decades before the Society Of The Snow brought the story of the Uruguayan Rugby Team, who survived a plane crash and weeks on top of a mountain, to the big screen, Ethan Hawke and company told the story in Alive. It's not as visceral as the newer movie, but it's still an incredible telling of the story.

The Great Escape

To be fair, The Great Escape is as much a "boys adventure" movie as it is a story of survival. Still, there is no question that there are some sad, harrowing moments for the POWs in a German camp during World War II. People do die, and there are real stakes (at times) in this classic movie from old Hollywood with an all-star cast.

Children Of Men

Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 movie Children of Men is, in a world, incredible. It may be overshadowed by his more recent work, like Gravity and Roma, but it's my favorite movie of his. It's also a unique look at survival, not just by the main characters in the movie, but humankind as a whole.

The Is The End

We had to include one comedy on this list. There are a few examples of funny takes on survival, but none are quite as ridiculous as This is the End. The all-star cast of Hollywood stars playing ridiculous versions of themselves is both funny and actually pretty scary at times.

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest, a television movie based on the book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. It depicts the true story of one of the deadliest seasons of climbing the world's highest mountain. Not everyone survives, but those who do, like Beck Weathers (Richard Jenkins), endured some of the most harrowing weather conditions ever seen on Earth.

The Swiss Family Robinson

One of the most famous stories of "surviving" has to be The Swiss Family Robinson, as told by Disney in a couple of different versions, including one in 1960. It's hardly harrowing, and it's pretty luxurious and therefore unrealistic, but it sure does seem like fun! Survival doesn't always have to be a nightmare in movies, apparently.

Man Friday

It's sort of surprising that the story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe hasn't been made into more movies. Man Friday is probably the best adaptation of the enduring novel, so it'll stand in for all of them.

Typically, audiences can rely on seeing a movie’s protagonist make it to the end unscathed. However, every so often, filmmakers like to defy expectations by having the character we have been following meet their maker, usually at the story’s conclusion, but sometimes even earlier. Beware of SPOILERS as we revisit some iconic movies that shocked the world by showing the main character’s demise.

Ghost (1990)

The acclaimed romantic “horror” movie Ghost is a prime example of a film in which the main character is dead for the majority of the story. Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) is murdered about 20 minutes in, but his spirit remains to solve the truth behind his death and reach out to his longtime girlfriend, Molly (Demi Moore), with the help of a medium named Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg, in an Oscar-winning performance).

Titanic (1997)

The fictional romance at the center of James Cameron's Titanic comes to a tragic end when Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) succumbs to the ocean's freezing temperatures – a death many believe could have been prevented if Rose (Kate Winslet) shared her makeshift liferaft. She is later reunited with her lover, however, when she succumbs to old age at the end of the Best Picture Oscar winner based on a true story.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Tom Hanks' Captain John H. Miller does, indeed, accomplish his eponymous mission in Steven Spielberg's harrowing war movie classic, Saving Private Ryan. Unfortunately, he does not survive the task, but not before urging Private John Francis Ryan (Matt Damon) to "earn" the life he has been given, thanks to this rescue.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Avengers: Endgame comes to a bittersweet conclusion when the team is forced to say goodbye to the hero who kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the first place, Tony "Iron Man" Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), after he saves the universe. Using nano-bot equipped armor to form a makeshift Infinity Gauntlet, he erases Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his army from existence with a finger snap that is, unfortunately, too much for his mortal body to handle.

Gladiator (2000)

Director Ridley Scott's Gladiator is the story of Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe), who is sold into slavery by corrupt emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), who also murders his family. However, he does reunite with them in the afterlife after defeating Commodus in a duel that he does not survive, having been previously and unfairly wounded by his opponent.

Beetlejuice (1988)

The title character is not the main character in Tim Burton's ghoulish comedy, Beetlejuice, although Michael Keaton's mischievous bio-exorcist (whose name is actually spelled "Betelgeuse") is dead throughout. The plot kicks off when Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) suffer a fatal accident and then try to rid their house of its new living tenants.

Alien (1979)

We all think of Scream Queen Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley as the hero of the Alien movies, but that is not quite the case at the beginning of the saga. Ripley is promoted to the hero of the story and captain of the Nostromo after the Xenomorph attacks Dallas (Tom Skerritt) in a shocking twist.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

There is not exactly one true protagonist in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, as each of its three non-linear stories ultimately has a different lead. However, John Travolta does get top billing for the Oscar-winning drama and his character, Vincent Vega, is mowed down with an uzi by Butch (Bruce Willis) in the second chapter, which is also the film's chronological finale.

No Country For Old Men (2007)

Technically, Tommy Lee Jones' Ed Tom Bell is the true central character of Joel and Ethan Coen's Oscar-winning adaptation of author Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. However, much of the modern Western movie classic follows Josh Brolin's Llewellyn Moss and his struggle to outrun and outwit the sadistic Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), up until his abrupt murder.

Psycho (1960)

It at least seems like Janet Leigh's Marion Crane is the central focus of Alfred Hitchcock's masterful horror movie, Psycho, until about halfway through the story. After the real estate secretary is brutally killed while taking a shower in her motel room, we realize the true "psycho" is Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who murders Marion and others while subconsciously taking on the identity of his dead mother.

Logan (2017)

Hugh Jackman's retirement from the role of Wolverine was confirmed by the end of Logan, in which the former X-Men member, whose healing ability had been diminishing, gives his life to protect Laura (Dafne Keen) and other young mutants. Of course, seven years later, a variant of the Adamantium-clawed mutant would star in Deadpool & Wolverine, but the emotional conclusion of James Mangold's Oscar-nominated film is no less effective for it.

Citizen Kane (1941)

The first scene of co-writer and director Orson Welles' revolutionary drama, Citizen Kane, depicts the death of the megalomaniacal title character, Charles Foster Kane (Welles). The succeeding story follows an investigation regarding the meaning of his final word, "Rosebud."

Hereditary (2018)

The marketing for first-time feature director Ari Aster's stunning A24 horror movie, Hereditary, made it seem as if the story would follow young Charlie (Milly Shapiro), making her demise all the more shocking. The unsettling twist confirmed that Charlie's mother, Annie (Toni Collette), was the film's true protagonist, but, of course, she would end up losing her head as well.

The Departed (2006)

Director Martin Scorsese's The Departed is the story of two men on opposite sides of the law, namely undercover cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Sgt. Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), who has ties to Boston's Irish Mob. Both lose their lives by the end, with Costigan getting killed by James Badge Dale's also corrupt Trooper Barrigan, and Sullivan getting killed by Staff Sergeant Sean Dignam (Mark Wahlberg).

The Sixth Sense (1999)

In The Sixth Sense, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) tries to help a young boy (played by Haley Joel Osment) come to terms with his ability to see ghosts. At the end, in just about the best M. Night Shyamalan movie twist, it is revealed that Malcolm himself is a ghost, but neither he nor the audience knew the entire time.

Promising Young Woman (2020)

The Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman is a unique type of revenge movie, following Cassie (Carey Mulligan) and her bid to punish those involved with the assault that drove her friend, Nina, to take her own life. In the end, she achieves her goal, but by allowing herself to get murdered by the man who assaulted Nina, Al Monroe (Chris Lowell), which finally incriminates him.

The Place Beyond The Pines (2012)

The Place Beyond the Pines is widely considered one of the best Ryan Gosling movies, despite the fact that the actor is not actually in the film for very long. Roughly halfway through the story, his character, Luke, dies whilst struggling to get away from a bank robbery job gone wrong.

A Quiet Place (2018)

In the heartbreaking final act of the acclaimed post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, A Quiet Place, Lee Abbott (John Krasinski, who also co-writes and directs) lets out a loud scream to attract the vicious, sound-hunting aliens away from his children, ultimately sacrificing himself for them. In addition to returning to helm the sequel, A Quiet Place Part II, Krasinski reprises the role in a flashback to the day the Death Angels' invasion begins.

Uncut Gems (2019)

Josh and Benny Safdie's Uncut Gems sees self-destructive jeweler Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) jump through hoops to pay off his insurmountable debt. At the shocking end of the intense, acclaimed A24 movie, just after finally landing the big win he needs, he is abruptly shot in the head by his brother-in-law's unstable goon, Phil (Kevin William Richards).

Train To Busan (2016)

An essential reason why South Korean import Train to Busan is regarded as one of the greatest zombie movies ever made is its heartbreaking conclusion in which Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) is bitten trying to protect his daughter, Su-an (Kim Su-an). The father is seen reminiscing about Su-an's birth right before he becomes one of the undead and, with all the humanity he has left, makes the decision to throw himself off the train and not bring harm to anyone else.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is not only a film that gets real about mental health, but depicts one of the bleakest realities imaginable for an asylum patient, as seen in the eyes of criminal Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), who only ended up in the institution by pleading insanity. After discovering that McMurphy has been lobotomized and that life has left his eyes, "Big Chief" Bromden (Will Sampson) mercifully suffocates his friend to death before escaping.

Soul (2020)

One of Pixar's best movies, Soul, tells the story of a jazz musician (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who dies in an accident just after landing the gig of his life. He then explores the afterlife, struggling to figure out a way to return to Earth.

Terrifier (2017)

Terrifier 2 introduces one of the most beloved horror movie Final Girls in Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera), but the woman you expect to make it out alive in its predecessor is not so lucky to be called a Final Girl. In fact, Tara Heyes (Jenna Kanell) even dies in a subversive way, as it seems she is about to put an end to Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) before the sadistic harlequin pulls out a pistol and shoots her in the head.

300 (2007)

Zack Snyder's 300 is an intense, highly fictionalized account of events surrounding the Battle of Thermopylae. One detail that the film does get right is that the Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) was killed in battle.

To Live And Die In L.A. (1985)

Director William Friedkin's intense crime thriller, To Live and Die in L.A., follows Secret Service agent Richard Chance (William Petersen) and his determination to find Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe), a counterfeiter who killed his partner. Unfortunately, Masters manages to escape as Chance and Masters' associate, Jack, fatally shoot each other.

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

One of the most essential reasons why Deep Blue Sea is a classic shark movie is the moment when the film takes a literal bite out of its biggest star, Samuel L. Jackson. The actor's character, Russell Franklin, is in the middle of a heroic speech when a genetically engineered shark leaps out of the water, pulls him underneath the surface, and eats him alive.

Life Is Beautiful (1997)

A movie dad we would be proud to have is Guido Orefice, played by co-writer and director Roberto Benigni in the heartbreaking Holocaust-era drama, Life is Beautiful. The Jewish-American man remains committed to using humor to shield his young son from the unspeakable tragedy surrounding him up until the very moment he is shot by Nazi officers.

Carnival Of Souls (1962)

In the cult horror film Carnival of Souls, Candace Hilligoss stars as Mary Henry, who takes a job as an organ player for a traveling carnival after suffering a terrible car accident. However, as the final scene reveals, Mary never actually survived that accident.

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Sean Connery was open about how much he disliked one of his last movies, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is based on a comic book by Alan Moore that groups various iconic figures of literature together, including Captain Nemo and Tom Sawyer. At least, if there had been a sequel, the former James Bond actor would not have needed to show up for it as his character, legendary adventure hero Allan Quatermain, passes away at the end.

15 Minutes (2001)

15 Minutes is a buddy cop action flick in which veteran New York detective Eddie Flemming (Robert De Niro) teams up with fire marshal Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns) to investigate the crimes of two Eastern European convicts seeking fame and fortune by selling off video recordings of their violent acts. One video they successfully sell to a popular news program is the murder of Flemming, who is suffocated to death roughly halfway through the film.

Alien 3 (1992)

Sigourney Weaver explained to the Chicago Tribune that she only agreed to star in Alien 3 if Ellen Ripley is killed off, which does occur when she jumps into a burning furnace as a baby Xenomorph bursts from her chest. Of course, the actor would come back just once more for Alien: Resurrection, but as a clone of Ripley.

The Lovely Bones (2010)

Many critics and audiences agree that director Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones is not a great movie despite its interesting plot. Based on author Alice Sebold’s novel, it stars Saoirse Ronan as a teenage girl watching over her family, and the man who murdered her, from the afterlife.

The original A Quiet Place was such a monster box office hit that it was little shock that the movie not only got a sequel but quickly became a franchise. Now there are three movies in the series, however, none of them is actually A Quiet Place 3. That movie was supposed to be on the way, in fact, A Quiet Place 3 was supposed to come out this year, but little has been heard recently. Now producer Brad Fuller has finally explained what’s going on.

A Quiet Place: Day One and A Quiet Place 3 were both supposed to be in development around the same time, but while one movie has since been released, the other has been nowhere to be seen, which might make some wonder if Quiet Place prequel Day One ultimately is the third piece of the trilogy. Producer Brad Fuller recently confirmed to The Direct that the prequel is not part three and that Part III is now in its early stages, saying…

The entire Quiet Place franchise has had a rough road since its first entry. The second film was all set to come out just as theaters were closing down in 2020 for the global pandemic. Rather than release the film at home as so many studios did, the decision was made for A Quiet Place Part II to wait for theaters.

The delay in Part III has been much more “standard Hollywood procedure.” In this case, Fuller says the issue has been the availability of director John Krasinski. He helmed the first two entries and will direct the third as well, but due to his success as a director finding the time for him to direct the new film has apparently been more difficult. Fuller said…

The word “hopefully” certainly looks ominous. While it sounds like there’s an expectation that A Quiet Place 3 will be moving forward soon, it certainly doesn’t sound like that’s a guarantee.

However, the fact that Part III is still an active project will certainly be good news for fans, and beyond that, it sounds like there are no plans for Part III to be the end, whether that means Part IV could also be on the way and/or more spinoffs like Day One.

The horror genre has been thriving for years now, with the renaissance bringing some of the best horror movies back to theaters with sequels. But we've also been treated to wholly original concepts, like the growing Quiet Place franchise (which is streaming with a Paramount+ subscription). The franchise was brought to life by John Krasinski, who directed and starred in the 2018 original movie. And he recently told the story behind the uphill battle he faced trying to get A Quiet Place off the ground, and how one person even said "I'm sorry, Is Jim from The Office going to direct?" Let's break it down.

While A Quiet Place recently expanded with a spinoff Day One (see CinemaBlend's review here), the original movie's success was not always a sure thing. John Krasinski was named Sexiest Man Alive, and spoke to People about how he fought to direct the horror flick. While he was originally approached to play the movie's father character, he ended up wanting to go deeper as a writer and director. As he told it:

There you have it. It seems like Emily Blunt and John Krasinski's daughters were a big reason why he connected with A Quiet Place's story. And indeed, the familial stakes gave the first two movies a ton of heart and an emotional place for audiences to land. Of course, he had to claw his way to the director's chair.

Later in that same interview, Krasinski revealed just how hard it was to convince the powers that be at Paramount that he was the right guy to direct A Quiet Place.... especially given his reputation as Jim from The Office.

In the end he was successful, and served as the director, writer, and start of the sound-focused horror flick. A Quiet Place's ending saw Krasinski's character Lee Abbott sacrifice himself to save his children, which freed him up to focus entirely on directing for the sequel. While he didn't direct or write Day One, he did help develop the prequel's story.

Fans are wondering if A Quiet Place 3 could happen, continuing the Abbott family's story in the process. While we wait for information, one thing is clear: Krasinski has proven himself as a director.

All three Quiet Place movies are streaming now on Paramount+ Check the 2025 movie release dates to plan your trips to the movies in the New Year.

Every year, CinemaBlend braves every Halloween Horror Nights haunted house announced in order to help you plan your evening at Universal Studios (whether it be Orlando or Hollywood). Since a house devoted to A Quiet Place officially joined the festivities, this horror fan has been anticipating how the franchise’s concept would translate to an attraction. Now that I’ve survived an immersive invasion of the Death Angels, I need to talk about my experience and the idea that it had me thinking about.

I Need To Talk About My Experience At Universal HHN’s A Quiet Place Haunted House 

Now, I ranked every 2024 Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights house in Hollywood last week during opening night, but the haunted house is also in Orlando – but it’s likely a tad different than the specific one I went to. It ranked high among my experiences that night, particularly for how effectively it immersed me into the world of the first two movies.

Yes, everyone was dead silent for this house (which is very atypical for the theme park). The house starts with Regan using sign language to alert you to remain quiet as you move through a dark forest. There were numerous scare actors dressed like humans like myself who showed terror on their faces amidst the looming fear of the Death Angels. One older man, for example, could be seen screaming before being killed off by one of them.

As I walked through the house, I found myself feeling the scares of the house, but instinctively remaining quiet with everyone else. Isn’t it interesting how survival skills like adaptation kick in? That's even though I also knew there were no real aliens out to get me. As I went deeper into the house, tons of animatronics of the Death Angels popped out from all angles, and I found them to be quite impressive. The house itself was also rather quiet, with beats like the sound on a radio or Evelyn being pregnant adding to the tension.

Now, Give Me An Alien Haunted House ASAP

After feeling I was living in the apocalyptic world of A Quiet Place, I thought about another one of the best horror movies about aliens for which I want to walk through a haunted house: Alien. That's especially since Alien: Romulus was recently among 2024 movies to feature animatronics of creepy extraterrestrials not unlike the Death Angels.

After seeing how effective this house was, I can imagine Universal Studios transforming one of their attractions into a spaceship to make one feel like they are in one of the Alien movies, with Xenomorph jump scares galore. How awesome would that be?

Why Alien At A Theme Park Isn't As Far-Fetched As You Might Think 

I know what you might be thinking. Alien is a Disney property now, and therefore unlikely to be part of Halloween Horror Nights, right? Well, I have some counter arguments. For one, a lot of the houses that have been featured during Universal’s Horror Nights events or throughout the theme park itself are not only Universal Studios properties. I mean, just look at The Simpsons Ride (and the land around it). That too is technically owned by Disney and has a massive place in the theme park.

Plus, A Quiet Place itself is a Paramount property. Other houses this year were not Universal either, like Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Insidious being from Sony Pictures movies, and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter itself belongs to Warner Bros. Halloween Horror Nights has even featured Alien before in a 2014 Orlando house for Alien vs. Predator. Yes, really.

Considering this year was Alien’s 45th anniversary, it would have been pretty sweet if Horror Nights featured Xenomorphs. But hey, it’s never too late! After A Quiet Place showed that some awesome animatronic aliens could scare me in the immersive haunted house experience, I think it’s time for another amazing alien-horror franchise to get its turn.

The following article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for A Quiet Place: Day One. If you have yet to watch the movie, please exercise extreme caution.

John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place franchise has given us some of the best horror movies in recent memory and countless unforgettable scenes that I’m sure we’ll be talking about for years to come. While few would argue that Michael Sarnoski’s prequel, Day One, is the best of the series, it does feature what I think is the best scene of the three movies: the marionette sequence.

I recently watched A Quiet Place: Day One with my Paramount+ subscription, and while I agreed with some of the film’s critical response and issues addressed in our official Day One review, I haven’t been able to quit thinking about this short and sweet scene, and how it captures the very best the franchise has to offer.

So, What Is The Marionette Scene Anyway? 

In the opening minutes of A Quiet Place: Day One, Samira (Lupia Nyong’o), a terminally ill and bitterly pessimistic cancer patient reluctantly goes with her hospice group to a marionette show in New York City. The sequence, which is set to Alexis Grapsas’ enchanting “Marionette” composition, shows a highly-skilled performer put on a transfixing and emotionally stirring performance in which his puppet blows up a balloon that begins to float about the stage before a sudden pop and a crash back to Earth.

So why do I think this is the best scene in one of the best horror franchises of all time? Allow me to explain.

The Sequence Finds That Perfect Balance Of Art And Tension

One thing that I have loved about the Quiet Place movies ever since I saw the franchise starter back in April 2018 is how they have always found the perfect balance of art and tension. The marionette scene in Day One is probably the best example of this, which is strange considering we spend most of it watching an inanimate object being tricked into thinking it is alive.

The music, the lighting and the quick glances at the young children in the audience captivated by the show all work together to create this brilliant, beautiful and incredibly tense series of events. Watching the balloon grow larger and larger before carrying the doll about the stage, I knew it was only a matter of time before it burst and brought an end to the brief and fleeting moment of tranquility. Honestly, this whole sequence is a perfect metaphor for that balance and the anticipation that overtakes us as we wait for that scale to flip.

I Love How The Balloon Pop Pretty Much Signals The Start Of The Alien Invasion

Another thing I love about the marionette sequence is that the alien invasion pretty much starts during the middle of the show, specifically when the balloon pops. Before Samira enters the dark theater, her world is pretty much normal (besides the whole terminal disease aspect), but as soon as the loud “POP” shakes her out her seat, she enters a world that has changed drastically.

The tense conversation with her hospice nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff), the chaos on the bus, the death and destruction on the streets of New York City, and the terrifying aliens picking people off all take place after the balloon bursts. This seemingly uneventful marionette show, in this case, serves as a herald of a new reality.

The Puppet Show Also Sets The Emotional Tone Of The Film

Though there were some fears that A Quiet Place: Day One wouldn’t live up to its predecessors when it came to capturing magic on screen, the marionette scene proves that that is far from the case. Much like key moments with the Abbott family early on the first and second films set the tone and stakes of their respective stories, this short, yet powerful sequence sets the emotional tone of the prequel, and its impact can be felt throughout the subsequent 90 minutes.

I’m not saying the moving poetry, magic or piano scenes later on wouldn’t be good without the early sequence, but I felt that it was the movie’s way of preparing the audience and telling us that this movie would make us cry tears of wonder and sorrow before everything is said and done. In that regard, I think it’s highly effective, not only for setting our expectations, but also in creating an enchanting escape from the hustle and bustle, or in this case, death and destruction of reality.

The Sequence, And Its Overall Meaning, Open Up So Many Questions

As is the case with most movies, there are a lot of questions following A Quiet Place: Day One, and some of mine have to do with the marionette sequence. If I was given the opportunity to talk to Michael Sarnoski and John Krasinski about the admittedly brief scene and its overall meaning, I’m sure I’d talk their ears off until I was ushered out of the room.

I would love to know if this puppet show was a metaphor for something larger in the film, if they included it to say something about the fleeting nature of peace and harmony, or if it just served as a really cool contrast to the loud, chaotic and action-packed sequences that make up the majority of the film’s screen time. Regardless of their reasoning, I just can’t get over how much a two-minute stretch, a very small part of the movie, could impact me the way this did.

The Marionette Show Lacks Action, But That Can Be Said About A Quiet Place's Most Iconic Scenes

Don’t get me wrong, the Quiet Place movies have featured some of the most intense action sequences of the past decade, in and out of horror, and Day One is no different in this regard. However, at the same time, the movies have also featured, for a lack of better terms, quiet and toned-down scenes that turned down the action dial and turned up the emotion and drama.

The nail and bathtub scenes from A Quiet Place and some of the more tender moments from A Quiet Place Part II have all shown these movies are about balance more than anything else. While the marionette sequence isn’t anywhere as intense as those moments, none of them are explosive action set pieces by any means.

Overall, the marionette sequence in A Quiet Place: Day One probably isn’t the first scene that comes to mind when thinking about the franchise’s best, but I believe it does a great job of capturing the beauty, essence and balance that has made these movies so much fun to watch. Now I can’t wait to see how A Quiet Place Part III, one of the most anticipated upcoming horror movies, ups the ante.

Every year, Universal Halloween Horror Nights manages to craft some super scary and interactive haunted houses to make us feel like we’re in the middle of either the best horror movies of all time or the original concepts crafted uniquely for Universal Studios’ guests. This year, the festivities have promised the terrors of silence from A Quiet Place movies, Bride of Frankenstein and Dracula's daughter going head to head, and the marshmallowy nostalgia of Ghostbusters across the many haunted houses this year.

2024’s festivities was my fourth year in a row as CinemaBlend’s final girl for Halloween Horror Nights (though last year I ranked Universal Orlando’s houses rather than the Hollywood ones). After going to the event's opening night, courtesy of Universal, on Thursday and surviving all the houses, I can confidently say 2024 is a really solidly scary and yet another really fun year to enjoy the spooky season at Universal Studios Hollywood. Here’s my personal ranking of all the houses in terms of how worth it I think they are to check out – though honestly, all of them are a great time.

8. Monstruos 2: The Nightmares of Latin America

Monstruos 2 was the first house of the night I ventured to, and I have to say, I was rather disappointed with this one – especially after the same location had one of the most terrifying Latin-themed houses in my 2022 ranking of Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights with La Llorona: The Weeping Woman. This original house (which is not far from the park’s entrance/Minion Land) had some creepy characters for sure, as it features El Charro, the devil dog El Cadejo and the boogeyman El Cucuy, but I found the scares to be rather one-note... and sort of goofy. Of course, it’s possible my walkthrough was during some weird lull.

7. Insidious: The Further

This year, Insidious returns to Halloween Horror Nights, and while we ranked the version in Orlando as the scariest this year, the same can definitely not be said about the Hollywood version. Now don’t get me wrong, this house (which is just past the Wizarding World) is super unsettling and had my blood curdling as it took me and the other guests deep into The Further through the red door, encountering dolls, a child’s drawings and demonic creatures on the way, but most of the house itself is a lot of long dark hallways.

6. Dead Exposure: Death Valley 

Down on the Lower Lot of Universal Studios Hollywood, there are four haunted houses to check out. If I were to tell you to skip one of them, I’d suggest Dead Exposure: Death Valley (especially since I know lines can get intense as the season progresses). That being said, I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected. This house takes place on a top-secret government facility where an experiment to create super soldiers has turned for the worst. This one is full of great imagery and a lot of cool use of neon lighting, but lacks the kind of real punch the remaining ones coming up do.

5. The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy 

When the first haunted house from The Weeknd came out in 2022, it surprised me when it became my favorite house of that year, particularly because I’m not an avid follower of his music. This sequel, Nightmare Trilogy (also on the Lower Lot), is another really impressive house from the wicked corners of The Weeknd’s mind, but like some sequels do, it just wasn’t as effective for me this time around. The story was more convoluted as well, from my POV. Even so, I really love how original the imagery feels, and how gory it is.

4. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire 

The only one of the 2024 movies to get its own haunted house this year is Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and it was definitely one of my favorites. From appearances from iconic Ghostbusters characters like the marshmallow men and Slimer, to numerous and quite terrifying appearances of Garraka, the Frozen Empire house does an awesome job of being really entertaining, making one feel like they are in the movie, and actually being quite scary too. The house (which is next to the Insidious house) even made me appreciate the movie itself more as well!

3. A Quiet Place

My most highly-anticipated house of this year was the first adaptation of A Quiet Place at Horror Nights. It’s one of my favorite horror franchises to come out of the past decade, and the house did not disappoint. As you go through the queue (located next to Monstruos 2), a woman on a screen encourages guests to remain quiet, and that’s just what my group did. It made me feel part of the eerie forest atmosphere as one early scare actor implemented sign language and another who screamed was instantly captured. I found myself abiding the urge to be quiet even though I was also internally gasping about all the amazing appearances of the aliens (or Death Angels) and references to the first two movies.

2. Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines 

I’m always a huge fan of Universal’s Monsters houses because of how much work they put into them year after year, including how they always pick a fun combination of characters to go head to head with. After our 2023 ranking of Hollywood’s Horror Nights had the Unmasked house at No. 4, Eternal Bloodlines stacked up even higher among houses this year. This house, which is the biggest one of the year and located on the Lower Lot, features Saskia Van Helsing teaming up with the Bride of Frankenstein against Dracula’s daughter, and the storytelling and the immersive nature of it was such a great time! I felt like I was in a movie I wanted to see, and the combination of worlds was really special to see in one house.

1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface

If you want to get really scared at Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights this year, the most gory and satisfyingly story heavy house of them all is this year’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre edition! The house (on the Lower Lot) comes as the first movie celebrates 50 years this spooky season, and wow, does it deliver. Rather than simply adapting one of the movies, as Horror Nights did in 2021, this one offers a super stressful and spine chilling origin story for Leatherface. Seriously, enter this one only if you can handle the terror!

Big Bonus Scare: Blumhouse's Terror Tram 

Last, but not least, I wasn’t sure where to rank this one, since it is technically not a haunted house, but a unique HHN experience. As the theme park has done in past seasons, during this event, Universal Studios Hollywood transforms its Studio Tour into a massive open air experience that takes guests through actual sets while they get scared. This year, it was all Blumhouse themed, with appearances from movies from the studio like M3GAN, The Purge, Freaky, Happy Death Day and one of Blumhouse’s upcoming horror movies, Wolf Man.

The fear factor is definitely rampant in Terror Tram this year, as the tram has guests walking through the backlot to a ton of scare actors running around with chainsaws and getting in your face. M3GAN gets to lead the pack with her viral dance and a lot of chaos, and that definitely made me want to turn back out of fear.

You can buy Halloween Horror Nights tickets for evenings up until November 3 on the Universal Studios Hollywood website now. I hope my final girl escapades help you have a blast at the best haunted houses of your choosing.

If you were in the Orlando area recently and found everything just a little bit creepier, there's a reason for that. Halloween Horror Nights is back for 2024. The annual event is the crown jewel of the Universal Orlando Resort year. Many fans look forward to it, and this year there are 10 all-new houses for those fans to experience.

The theme this year was the duality of physical body gore, torture and psychological terror. The main icons are SINIST3R, the guardian of physical pain, body torture and gore, and SURR3AL, the overlord of psychological torment and terror. This was reflected in the scare zones and the houses. Some houses leaned more into body horror, while others messed with your perception and senses. To get through the park, you must choose either SINIST3R or SURR3AL’s realms, then you can make your way through their domains.

All HHN houses are worth experiencing, but every year some stand above all others. Which were the best houses at Halloween Horror Nights in 2024? CinemaBlend got an early look at all 10, and here are our rankings.

10. Triplets of Terror 

The Barmy Triplets are the stars of this house. Universal didn’t want one original slasher, they wanted three. While the story of the house isn't entirely clear from simply walking through it, "murderous triplets you don't want to meet" is simple enough to understand.

This house was super gory. The mix of the sounds of screaming and child-like laughter was very unnerving. This house is catching some flak on TikTok for a dead dog, which may upset some, but this certainly shows how disturbing it can be.

9. Slaughter Sinema 2

If you're a Halloween Horror Nights fan, you're probably also a horror movie fan. Going to the theater to watch a gruesome murder is one thing, but becoming the victim is something else entirely.

This is a sequel house from 2018. The attention to detail with the movie posters was really cool to see if you are a fan of vintage cinema. If you like b-movies, you will appreciate seeing the different film concepts come to horrifying life.

8. The Museum: Deadly Exhibits 

Museums are honestly naturally creepy places. So much of what they have are the remnants of civilizations long passed. Of course, when the stuff in the museum comes to life, it gets extra spooky.

This house has an incredible amount of detail in its design, which really makes you feel like you're in a museum. The makeup work on the scare actors, and the props, are also top-notch.

7. Goblins’ Feast 

This was a super simple, but gory concept. I loved that the front of the house looked like a pub and was welcoming to humans. Things shift dramatically after you get inside. There were sounds of munching and slurping to add to the visual of the Goblins having their Thanksgiving feast of humans. This house is a great mix of horror and fantasy, something we don't see often enough

6. A Quiet Place 

Everyone was wondering what Universal was going to do with an HHN house based on A Quiet Place since sound is a big part of how houses usually create fear. In this house, it starts out quiet, but that quickly changes. The common sound through the house was crying babies. It's very unsettling.

They did a great job understanding that it would be impossible to make people entirely quiet, but still honored the idea by making the scare actors who played mothers panic with the babies crying. And many guests do try to be silent, which, when it works, adds to the incredible vibe of a unique house.

5.  Major Sweets Candy Factory 

Many of Halloween Horror Nights' most popular houses are based on popular horror films, but over the years, the event itself has created its own stories, characters and lore. A couple of years ago, we got the Major Sweets scarezone, and it was a popular enough idea that this year it graduated to a full house.

The house is actually a prequel to the story from the previous scare zone. The storyline is simple, but very believable with the zombified children running around trying to kill you. There is a lot of gore.

4. Eternal Bloodlines 

With a new Dark Universe land coming to the brand-new Epic Universe park, we're going to get classic Universal Monsters in entirely new ways. We got what might be a slight preview of that this year at HHN with Eternal Bloodlines.

There's all female monsters battling with the last descendant of the Val Helsing family, Saskia Van Helsing (daughter of Abraham Van Helsing). The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula’s daughter, and She-Wolf team up to end the lineage of the Van Helsing Family.

3. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

This year saw a new Ghostbusters movie in theaters, and while the film may not have set the box office on fire, it's the perfect setting for an HHN house. Sometimes you need a change of pace from all the scares, and Frozen Empire was that.

The animatronics in this house were awesome. This felt like you were inside the movie Frozen Empire, and true to form, it included some laughs along with the scares. There were familiar faces (new and old), and no spoilers, but right before you exit the house is one of our favorite sections of the house. It was a nice palette cleanser from the gore.

2. Monstruous: Monsters of Latin America 

Monstruous: Monsters of Latin America was one of the best houses at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2023. It was an exclusively West Coast house last year, so it was great to get it moved east so that another audience could experience it, and it was worth it.

The monsters may not be well known by everybody, but that only makes them more terrifying. They brought Latin American legends Tlahuelpuchi, La Lechuza and El Silbón to Orlando. It is a very graphic house with babies being eaten.

1. Insidious: The Further

This house was incredible. The jump scare potential in this one is off the scale. The scares come fast and often, and this house is easily the most frightening of all of the houses in 2024. The setup is very disorienting, which puts you on edge to begin with.

HHN keeps building every year. Bringing original stories to life, as well as finding new ones from around the world and throughout movie history, makes the event a lot of fun for hardcore horror fans and casuals alike. There are tons of easter eggs, too... if you can focus long enough between screams.

Halloween Horror Nights runs at Universal Studios Florida through November 3, and the Universal Studios Hollywood version gets rolling this weekend, with some of its own exclusive houses, including one involving The Weeknd.

While watching Alien: Romulus, it occurred to me that the Xenomorph never fails to terrify. However, it also made me wonder, Is it the scariest movie alien of all time?

There are countless classic horror movies and even more awesome sci-fi movies that have unveiled otherworldly creatures of all different shapes, sizes, and, most importantly, qualities of nightmare fuel, but only one can be the eeriest and most intimidating extra-terrestrial of all. Could it be the Xenomorph? Let's take a deeper look at some of cinema's most horrifying horror villains from outer space before we determine which is my choice for the ultimate in revolting interplanetary royalty.

First, let's start with some honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions

While they did not make the cut for my personal Top 10 Scariest Movie Aliens, I could not call this list complete without some mention of freaky favorites like the visitors who abducted Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney) in 1993's Fire in the Sky, the bioraptors from the first Riddick movie (2000's Pitch Black), and what are referred to as "Gorilla-Wolf Motherfuckers" in 2011's Attack the Block. 

I also believe that Jean Jacket from Jordan Peele's Nope is one of the best modern horror movie villains for its stunningly unique design alone, the haunting sights from The Shimmer (which some might consider to be a creature in its own right) make 2018's Annihilation one of the best sci-fi horror movies of its time, and Robert Patrick's performance as a gym teacher infected by an alien parasite makes 1998's The Faculty a classic.

10. Blue Aliens (They Live)

Have you ever felt you were being treated like a puppet? If so, you can relate to Roddy Piper's Nada from John Carpenter's They Live, who uses special sunglasses to uncover one of the most inventive alien invasion movie plots: brainwashing the human race with subliminal messaging while living among us in plain sight. The Blue Aliens' plan might be even scarier today than when the cult favorite was released in 1988, as its themes of psychological manipulation are more relevant now than ever.

9. The Blob (The Blob)

Not to undermine psychological manipulation, but at least that sort of circumstance is easier to overcome than being consumed whole by sentient slime, like The Blob. With all due respect to the original from 30 years earlier, Chuck Russell's 1988 version is the one that really pulls no punches in showing what horrors this strange gelatinous goo is capable of.

8. Edgar The Bug (Men In Black)

I am actually not sure which I find scarier: Edgar the Bug in his true form as a giant cockroach or while hiding under Vincent D'Onofrio's skin. Either way, the slimy interstellar terrorist is easily Men in Black's most iconic alien for its breathtakingly eerie design and intimidating snarl, even though J (Will Smith) does manage to find its soft spot by stomping on some of its smaller relatives.

7. Long-Limbed Gray (No One Will Save You)

The otherworldly visitors in Brian Duffield's No One Will Save You (one of the best horror movies on Hulu) boast the most familiar alien design imaginable (gray skin with a skinny frame and bulbous head). However, the 2023 film's most unnerving sequence sees Kaitlyn Dever's Brynn chased by one creature with extra-extra-long arms and legs that sends a chill down your spine with every movie it makes.

6. The Children (Village Of The Damned)

Another great John Carpenter movie featured on our list is his 1995 remake of Village of the Damned, in which Superman actor Christopher Reeve takes on human-looking youngsters who turn out to be alien spawn hellbent on taking over the world. The horror genre has its fair share of creepy kids, but the eerily intelligent, platinum-blonde troublemakers with hypnotic eyes are on a whole different level.

5. Death Angels (A Quiet Place)

While the antagonistic creatures from the post-apocalyptic movie favorite, 2018's A Quiet Place, and its sequels are undeniably chilling, it is not their appearance that makes the so-called "Death Angels" so iconically scary. It is their keen sense of hearing, which has forced people all over the world, such as the Abbotts, to live in complete silence or become the monsters' next meal.

4. Pod People (Invasion Of The Body Snatchers)

Perhaps the only thing scarier than a savage beast from another planet is an alien that looks perfectly human and intends to replace you, your loved ones, and the rest of mankind. Hollywood has released multiple Invasion of the Body Snatchers movies, but one thing that remains the same in each iteration is the eerie, emotionless Pod People, who can only take your place if you cannot stay awake.

3. Predator (Predator)

Not all of cinema's most frightening extra-terrestrial creatures are animalistic savages. Exhibit A: the hulking, titular antagonist of the Predator movies, who does select its targets randomly, but uses a certain code of honor like your typical hunter would. Defeating the creature is not a test of strength but of wit, which Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch learns during his final one-on-one battle with the "ugly motherfucker" in the 1987 original.

2. Xenomorph (Alien)

One of the Predator's most challenging opponents is the Xenomorph, which is not so merciful and will tear apart anything that comes in its way — its first victims always being the human host it pops out of. Cunning stamina and bloodlust aside, H.R. Giger's unmistakably iconic design for the Alien movies' flagship creature, which has since taken on many different Xenomorph variations, is an unparalleled combination of picturesque purity and unsettling grotesquerie.

1. The Thing (The Thing)

However, the one thing that the Xenomorph cannot do is fool its prey by posing as a fellow human they trust, like the titular creature from John Carpenter's masterpiece, The Thing, which was a surprising box office flop in 1982. In addition to the wave of paranoia it inspires, the creature's ability to perfectly imitate any living organism makes way for some indelibly gruesome transformations that little to no other cinematic extra-terrestrials can rival.

Our beloved and beautiful Xenomorph just cannot hold a candle to the more clever and manipulative master of disguise from The Thing, which is why I believe it is the scariest movie alien we have ever seen. Would you agree?

Have you ever felt like you exist in a post-apocalyptic movie or TV show? Well, before you start building an underground bunker, stock up on non-perishable food, and practice any other survival tactics you know, take a look back at some of the best dystopian movies (and the genre's finest small-screen entries) and see if the potential causes to civilization's downfall that they provide feel at all familiar to you.

Climate Change Experiment Gone Wrong (Snowpiercer)

In Bong Joon-ho's 2014 adaptation of the French graphic novel, Snowpiercer, a diverse group of passengers boards a self-sustaining bullet train right before an experimental attempt to reverse climate change turns the outside world into an uninhabitable tundra. Seventeen years later, the survivors have set up a caste system from inside the train, but some of the impoverished citizens of the caboose, led by Curtis (Chris Evans in one of his most underrated performances), aim to resist.

Global Outbreak Of Post-Fatal Reanimation (The Walking Dead)

Until an explanation was provided in the post-credits scene from the finale of the short-lived spin-off, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, we never knew what caused the "Walker Apocalypse" in AMC's series adaptation of Robert Kirkman's hit comic book. However, the second season did reveal a unique aspect of the zombie virus, in that all survivors are somehow doomed to be reanimated no matter how they die unless their brain is destroyed.

Flooded Earth (Waterworld)

In Waterworld, global warming worsens enough to melt the polar ice caps, causing mass flooding that leaves the entire Earth fully submerged... or so it seems. Kevin Costner stars in the now beloved 1994 box office flop as a mariner who searches for what is believed to be the last of dry land in this anarchic dystopia.

Mystical Tree (Sweet Tooth)

Based on the DC Vertigo comic book series by Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth tells the story of a deadly virus that broke out at the same time many infants were mysteriously born as human/animal hybrids, causing suspicion that these unique beings were somehow responsible for the pandemic. In the Netflix fantasy series finale, it is revealed that a unique tree with antlers for branches was attacked by an axe-wielding human, inspiring it to kill the human race and replace them with animal-like beings.

Artificial Intelligence (The Terminator Movies)

The first three Terminator movies are, more than anything, time travel movies set in the modern day that provide hints and glimpses of a future eradicated by sentient machines. The fourth installment, 2009's Terminator: Salvation, is the first to be set entirely in the wartorn dystopia in which a grown-up John Connor (Christian Bale) leads a human resistance.

Nuclear Disaster (Fallout)

The long-running video game franchise, Fallout, and its Amazon Prime original series adaptation involves a unique depiction of a world eradicated by nuclear bombs, forcing some lucky people underground and others struggling to endure the surface. It takes place in the distant future, but one in which microprocessors were never invented, causing technological progress to remain largely trapped in the 1950s.

Sound-Hunting Aliens (A Quiet Place)

The A Quiet Place movies depict the ongoing aftermath of an alien invasion that is easy to survive, as long as you watch your volume. The vicious "Death Angels," as they are called, cannot see but have impeccable hearing ability that makes them a danger to anyone who makes even the slightest peep.

Cordyceps (The Last Of Us)

Craig Zobel developed one of the most acclaimed video game adaptations of all time with his HBO series based on the hit PlayStation game, The Last of Us. One of the most interesting things about the show's take on zombie fiction is that the inciting incident — a Cordyceps fungus that turns humans into grotesque monsters — is scientifically plausible.

Unknown, Psychologically Manipulative Phenomenon (Bird Box)

Even though Josh Malerman's novel that inspired Bird Box was published years before A Quiet Place was released, many audiences compared the 2018 Netflix original thriller to it for somewhat understandable reasons. Instead of aliens that force survivors to keep quiet, Sandra Bullock's character and others must shield their eyes from a mysterious force that has a fatal effect on some and a dangerous psychological effect on others.

Universal Loss Of Sight (See)

Jason Momoa leads the Apple TV+ series See, which foretells a global virus that leaves a mere few million survivors, whose descendants are later born blind. The main setting takes place so far in the future that the sense of sight is believed to be a myth among the people, who live in a more primitive and tribal society. 

Depleting Resources And Economic Collapse (Mad Max Movies)

It is never explicitly stated in the Mad Max movies what caused Australia to become a barren, desert wasteland of fire and blood, but there are clues littered throughout George Miller's seminal franchise. The 1979 original depicts a near future with an increased crime rate while the following films show further decay resulting from a rapid loss of natural resources and a ruined economy.

Disappearance Of 2% Of Mankind (The Leftovers)

Imagine if two percent of the world's population suddenly vanished from the face of the Earth. Tom Perotta's novel The Leftovers and co-developer Damon Lindelof's HBO series based upon it does not bother to ask how or why the rapture-esque event occurs but envisions how it would affect those who remain.

Infertility (Children Of Men)

One of the best movies of the 2000s, director Alfonso Cuarón's adaptation of P.D. James' novel, Children of Men, takes place in a dystopian future in which all women have mysteriously lost the ability to have children, ensuring the human race has an expiration date. However, when the first woman to become pregnant in years is discovered, Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is tasked with escorting her through a wartorn world and bringing her to safety. 

Extraterrestrial Infiltration (V)

While the antagonists of most alien invasion movies are pretty upfront about their intentions, the cult favorite miniseries V (and its subsequent series continuation, concluding miniseries called V: The Final Battle, and ABC's 2009 remake) flips the script a bit. Lizard-like creatures from another world don human-like disguises to gain mankind's trust, but their plans to deplete Earth's resources and feed on humans are later revealed.

Mutated Strain Of Ebola (28 Days Later)

What makes 28 Days Later one of the most realistic zombie movies is that the infected are not the living dead, but are alive and not doing very well at all. In director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland's 2003 thriller, a strain of Ebola evolves into a highly contagious virus that instantly turns people into mindless beings of insatiable fury, leading to a mostly desolate London. 

Technological Breakdown (Twisted Metal)

As the 1990s were coming to a close, people feared that once we entered the year 2000, all technology would fail, which is similar to the cyber attack that created the dystopian society in Twisted Metal. Peacock's series adaptation of the video game franchise stars Anthony Mackie as a delivery man traveling through the dangerous lands that exist outside of the walled-off fortresses where the last of the world's major cities stand.

Darkseekers (I Am Legend)

One of Will Smith's best movies is 2007's I Am Legend, in which he plays Robert Neville, who believes he is the last human being alive, due to a virus that he helped create in an attempt to cure cancer. Instead, it turned those infected into nocturnal, zombie-like creatures referred to as "Darkseekers" that fed on the immune survivors, leading to the lonely Earth the doctor must endure on his own.

Alien Invasion (Falling Skies)

From producer Steven Spielberg, Falling Skies depicts the aftermath of extra-terrestrials coming to Earth and destroying all major cities, with the sole intention of extracting an Earthly resource that can power their technology. Noah Wyle leads the series, which ran for five seasons on TNT, as a former history professor who becomes a leading figure of mankind's resistance.

Evil Robot (9)

Director Shane Acker's Tim Burton-produced, feature-length adaptation of his animated short 9, which came out in 2009, begins after humanity is no more and the only living beings left are a group of nine sentient rag dolls. They were created by a scientist who was also forced by a fascist leader to build the robotic device that would end mankind known as B.R.A.I.N.

Vampires (The Strain)

In most vampire lore, the creatures typically keep to themselves, waiting until nightfall to feed on, maybe, one or two victims at a time. However, Guillermo del Toro and Carlton Cuse's FX TV show The Strain — also based on their series of novels — sees the bloodsuckers attempt world domination, leaving a small batch of unbitten survivors to hopefully bring light back into the world.

Dragons (Reign Of Fire)

We often associate dragons with stories set in a fantasy world and at a time way before modern technology existed. However, Reign of Fire, starring Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale, imagines a near future in which most of humanity has been wiped out by the large, winged, fire-breathing beasts.

Global Loss Of Electricity (Revolution)

Creator Eric Kripke's NBC series Revolution takes place years after a worldwide blackout leaves humanity in a state of violent disarray. It would later be revealed that a highly advanced computer virus is what caused electricity to become extinct.

A Combination Of Things (This Is The End)

The point of the 2013 apocalyptic comedy This Is The End is really just to see celebrities like Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Emma Watson poking fun at themselves. So, Rogen and co-writer and co-director Evan Goldberg do not harm the story one bit by throwing various doomsday scenarios at you, such as the Rapture, earthquakes, a sinkhole, and giant demons.

Virus Carried Through Precipitation (The Rain)

One of the best horror TV shows on Netflix is a Danish import called The Rain, in which the eponymous, common weather pattern becomes humanity's worst fear. The reason being: that anyone who is touched by rainfall immediately contracts a disease that proves deadly for most, but causes bizarre effects for others.

Zombie Outbreak Via Mad Cow Disease (Zombieland)

Most of the best zombie movies do not even bother to explain how the dead rise from their graves and pass on an appetite for human flesh through bites. Leave it to a horror comedy movie like 2009's Zombieland to come up with a source of the carnage, which Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) reveals in his overhead narration to be a mutated strain of Mad Cow Disease.

Global Animal Attacks (Zoo)

Animals lack ego, ambition, and other qualities that keep humanity at the top of the food chain, but what if they suddenly gain a desire to take the planet back? Authors James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge envisioned this scenario in their 2012 novel, Zoo, which was later adapted into a short-lived CBS series of the same name. 

World War III (Equilibrium)

Writer and director Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium imagines a society in which, in the aftermath of a brutal third World War, human emotion is medically suppressed by law, in addition to all art being banned. Yet, when John Preston (Christian Bale), whose profession involves maintaining order in his dystopian society, accidentally misses a dose, the emotional response leads him to join a resistance against his totalitarian state.

Overpopulation And High Pollution (Terra Nova)

With the world's population rising rapidly and the environment suffering as a result, an ordinary family searches for a new place to call home. They find what they need by traveling back to prehistoric times and joining Terra Nova, which is the eponymous colony from Fox's short-lived sci-fi series.

Vanishing Technology And Government (The Postman) 

If you missed the opening caption that indicates The Postman takes place 16 years in the future, you might be quick to assume this dystopian sci-fi flick is just another Kevin Costner-led Western. While the initial cause of the apocalypse in the 1997 thriller is never made clear, its lingering aftermath involves the complete erasure of modern technology, leaving people to travel by horse, for instance, and a rise in neo-feudalism.

Deadly Exposure To Sunlight (Into The Night)

In Netflix's Belgian sci-fi series Into the Night, the radiation from the Sun becomes too intense for humanity to withstand, causing anyone exposed to its light to drop dead where they stood. This event forces a group of airline passengers to fly wherever the sun has not risen for as long as they can.

Nuclear Holocaust (The Book Of Eli)

The desolate world from 2010's The Book of Eli was brought on by a nuclear disaster that caused a wide depletion of most natural resources... and religion, too. Denzel Washington stars in the title role of a drifter on a mission to bring the last Bible in existence to the right people, if he can survive the treacherous dystopian landscape.

Monsterization (Sweet Home)

Netflix's live-action adaptation of the webtoon Sweet Home takes place in a version of South Korea eradicated by a virus that turns humans into bizarre creatures in a process referred to as "monsterization." The series' hero, Cha Hyun-su (Song Kang), becomes infected by this disease in Season 1, but is one of the few to maintain human characteristics amid his transformation.

For all that we’d like to believe otherwise, there are only so many upcoming horror movies and upcoming horror TV shows to look forward to in any given year, and genre fans will always be hungry for more. Thankfully, freaky storytelling and haunting creatures aren’t limited to just those two mediums, and the world of horror video games continues to expand, with tons of great horror games released yearly. That pattern won’t be changing during the back half of 2024 and beyond.

From highly anticipated sequels to bestselling hits to universe-expanding spinoffs of popular movie franchises to a new release from one of video games’ most unique creators, the future is bright with fright-filled fun for gamers. So without further ado, let’s set our preferred camera angles and dive into all the upcoming horror games we’re most excited about.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Into The Pit (August 8, 2024)

A project meant to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Scott Cawthon’s original Five Nights at Freddy’s game release, Mega Cat Studios’ FNAF: Into the Pit is the first in the franchise to fully take on a 2D approach with pixel art, and is an adaptation of the novella trilogy serving as the first volume of Fazbear Frights. The story follows a kid named Oswald who travels back to the past via pizzeria ball pit, and fights to save both timelines from a certain dangerous animatronic.

Silent Hill 2 (October 8, 2024)

One of the pioneer horror video game franchises is making a killer comeback with multiple releases on the way, as well as the upcoming film sequel Return to Silent Hill from director Christophe Gans. Silent Hill 2 will be a top to bottom remaster of the original PlayStation game, with Bloober Team taking on development duties alongside Konami, with some of the original creative team returning. It will seemingly be a faithful revision, as the O.G. contributors’ suggestions for changes were turned down by the new squad (via Fumitsu).

Phasmophobia (October 2024)

The spooky ghost-hunting simulation game Phasmophobia has technically been playable on PC since its Early Access mode debuted in September 2020, but its finalized console release is finally set to arrive in time for Halloween 2024. (Pending the horror of further delays.) Essentially a playable iteration of the least annoying ghost-hunting TV show, Phasmophobia gives gamers a varied assortment of locations to test for paranormal activity, with a host of tools and tech to find and track the different types of specters. Add in the sanity meter and VR mode, and it’s a can’t miss for genre buffs.

Alan Wake 2: The Lake House DLC (October 2024)

While not a full-on release, this DLC made the cut due to Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake 2 being one of the most unpredictable and gloriously mind-boggling horror games of all time. The first DLC release, a trio of Night Springs-inspired one-off adventures, dropped in June 2024, while the second will focus more on the lore surrounding Cauldron Lake. Titled The Lake House, which is an area of the main game that wasn’t previously accessible, the new story will focus on a secret government facility on the lake’s shores where something terribly wrong went down.

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead (Late 2024)

The fourth entry in the horror franchise first developed in part by John Krasinski, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is another standalone story similar to the prequel spinoff A Quiet Place: Day One that released in June 2024. It will follow Anairis Quiñones’ asthmatic college student Alex Taylor and her boyfriend Martin (Aleks Le) trying to survive against post-apocalyptic alien threats. Though not many details have been revealed about the story, the first trailers released so far look pretty great, and showcase a microphone mechanic that gamers will utilize to keep the noise down.

Bye Sweet Carole (TBA 2024)

Created by Remothered’s Chris Darril, the narrative-driven horror Bye Sweet Carole shares a visual aesthetic with Disney’s classic hand-animated features that inspired it. The 1900s-set story takes place at the mysterious Bunny Hall orphanage, where Lana Benton doesn’t believe the stories that her BFF Carole ran away, and uncovers another world beyond our own in trying to find her. This legitimately looks like Nightmare Before Christmas subject matter and tone through the prism of Snow White.

John Carpenter's Toxic Commando (TBA 2024)

Filmmaker John Carpenter made a career out of creating fan-favorite cult classic movies, and brought those skills to his love of video games for some over-the-top gore and mayhem in the form of John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando. Whether in first-person shooter or co-op mode, players will take charge of a commando with a widespread assortment of weapons at their disposal, in the hopes of taking down a plethora of undead creatures birthed by the Sludge Lord, a science experiment gone evil. This thing already needs a movie adaptation.

The Lost Wild (TBA 2024/2025)

Al horror game like no other, the first-person survival adventure The Lost Wild essentially looks like it’ll be the best version of a Jurassic Park video game, with players taking on a character who finds themselves in the middle of a dinosaur-filled setting. This is no mere trip back in time, though, as there are several abandoned facilities that will help players piece together what went down, while also offering temporary respite from the curious and potentially deadly threats outside. Not all of the dino-beasts are necessarily threats, however, which can factor into how the game is approached. If only there was also a faux Dr. Ian Malcolm to look forward to.

Tenebris Somnia (TBA 2025)

A bonkers mix of pixel-perfect 8-bit graphics and full-motion video, Tenebris Somnia centers on a woman plagued by nightmares in which her ex-boyfriend is murdered by gross-looking creatures. After she’s unable to confirm his safety in her waking life, she goes back to check on him at the apartment they once shared, and that appears to be when all manner of weirdness breaks loose. The transition between live-action and game design seems like it’ll make for some unique jolts, and the make-up effects thankfully look high-quality enough to be genuinely haunting.

Little Nightmares III (TBA 2025)

The sequel to a pair of best-selling and critically acclaimed horror darlings from Bandai Namco, Little Nightmares III will take players back to The Nowhere with a pair of new youths, Low and Alone, making this the first co-op of the series. As well, this is the first L.N. game to be developed by Supermassive Games, which has produced the “decisions matter” games in the Dark Pictures Anthology, as well as the standalone throwback horror The Quarry. So even if the branching story elements aren’t in the mix, there will likely be a few more unique gameplay mechanics to look forward to.

Deep Cuts (TBA 2025)

From the Scythe Dev Team that created the cult hit Happy's Humble Burger Farm, the upcoming VR adventure Deep Cuts exists in the same universe, but moves the action to a film studio where movies come alive. More specifically, gamers will play as Elise Weber as she attempts to track down her missing BFF and creative partner by searching through the catalog of movies they produced by going into them, allowing for a range of destructive chaos as Elise comes to blows with a deadly and deranged group of cartoon characters.

Hideo Kojima's OD (TBA)

The genius and ever-divisive game mastermind Hideo Kojima is turning his bizarro modern epic Death Stranding into a movie, but when it comes to interactive entertainment, the writer/director is next set to deliver the completely mysterious horror game known simply as OD (short for overdose). While little is known about the game beyond a hospital and patients playing into it, we’re pumped that Jordan Peele helped co-write the game with Kojima, and that it stars I Am Not Okay with This’ Sophia Lillis, Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer, and Iron Sky’s Udo Kier.

Silent Hill F (TBA)

The world of Silent Hill is heading to a completely different location for the game series’ ninth entry, Silent Hill F. Developed by NeoBards Entertainment, this sequel will shift the action back in time to the 1960s, and across the planet to rural Japan. The country’s culture has been at the heart of highly unsettling games for decades now, so it can hopefully only get more psychologically unnerving when put through the Konami franchise’s prism. Here’s hoping more details are revealed sooner than later.

The Casting of Frank Stone (TBA)

Set in the fictional universe of Dead by Daylight, The Casting of Frank Stone won’t be a pvp game, but rather an interactive narrative developed by Supermassive Games, the team behind The Quarry and other branching storyline games. Set in 1980 within the Oregon town of Cedar Hills, the game centers on four victims, er, filmmakers whose goal is to film at an abandoned steel mill, all while the hyper-deadly Frank Stone hunts them down. The titular villain’s legacy and past generations will also be explored through the story, adding new context to a franchise that has thrived thanks to playable licensed horror characters from projects such as Stranger Things, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser and many more.

Clock Tower Rewind (TBA)

Many horror gamers have never had a properly official chance to play the 1995 classic Clock Tower, as it’s never been released outside of Japan. But that changes with the completely remastered and enhanced Clock Tower: Rewind, which puts players back in the shoes of orphan teen Jennifer within the Barrows family mansion, where secrets, items and the dreaded Scissorman may be hiding around every corner. While the O.G. version will be available to play, the enhanced mode features new animations, music, cut-scenes, artwork and more.

Paranormal Tales (TBA)

While it may look like an upcoming entry in the V/H/S anthology series, Digital Cybercherries’ Paranormal Tales is a game that’s wholly inspired by the found-footage subgenre, and the player’s P.O.V. comes entirely through body-cam footage, which has a distinct aesthetic compared to traditional FPS games. Gamers will ostensibly be “playing” the doomed footage, so it will be interesting to see how much of the action is predetermined, and how much can be changed as each story progresses.

Project M (TBA)

Bloober Team, the acclaimed company behind Blair Witch, Layers of Fear and The Observer (among others) revealed in early July 2024 that it’s developing a horror game currently dubbed Project M that’ll be a Nintendo Switch exclusive. Even without knowing any other details, that’s exciting enough for it to make this list. It reportedly won’t be on the same scale as past releases, but will be a very important title nonetheless. One can only hope that means one or more of Nintendo’s core characters will take on a freaky adventure.

Silent Hill: Townfall (TBA)

Part of the impetus behind expanding the Silent Hill universe was Konami giving different developers the keys to the kingdom, as it were, to give fans a variety of experiences. The spinoff Silent Hill: Townfall could definitely be a franchise standout, with Annapurna Interactive teaming with NoCode Studio for a story that’s possibly set near an ocean, if the initial teaser footage is an indication. Annapurna has produced too many winners to name, while NoCode developed two of my favorite genre games of the past decade, Stories Beyond and Observation.

Welcome to July, Stephen King fans! Historically, this month hasn’t seen the release of many new King projects, but there are two anniversaries to celebrate to kick off this week’s edition of The King Beat. Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of The Long Walk – which was King’s second novel published with his Richard Bachman pseudonym and is a powerful and devastating dystopian tale and is soon being adapted as an upcoming King movie. It was also approximately 42 years ago that the first Creepshow comic was released in advance of what’s remembered as one of the best King films of all time.

But there isn’t time to only focus on anniversaries; there are other stories to discuss from the world of Stephen King this week, including the author’s thoughts on two films that are presently playing in a theater near you. This week’s column includes King’s opinion on A Quiet Place: Day One, new 4K UHD news for physical media collectors, and a perfectly appropriate Recommendation Of The Week, but first, let’s dig into his thoughts on the public discourse surrounding Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1.

Stephen King Labels Reaction To Horizon: An American Saga Part 1 Box Office Results As “Schadenfreude”

Last year, Stephen King publicly expressed disappointment about movie-goer reactions to the theatrical performance of director Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels. The author noted that he is not personally a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or superhero blockbusters, he didn’t appreciate people expressing delight in the film’s underwhelming box office performance. He wondered why anyone would “gloat over failure,” and he expressed a similar sentiment this week regarding the opening weekend numbers for Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1.

The first movie in what is planned as a four-part epic, Horizon didn’t put up much of a fight against hit sequels Inside Out 2 and A Quiet Place: Day One in its box office opening weekend, and it only barely beat out Bad Boys: Ride Or Die for third place in the domestic Top 10. The $11 million in earnings has been mocked by some on social media and some news outlets in light of Kevin Costner’s ambitious vision for the project, and Stephen King used a word that only exists in German to describe the commentary on Twitter. King wrote,

Putting that shot at the Marvel Cinematic Universe aside, Stephen King highlights an important point. If the movie-going public mocks risky original projects and exclusively pays attention to sequels and blockbusters, the industry is going to only make sequels and blockbusters. Diversity is important in the box office ecology, and scope has been getting narrower and narrower in the 21st century.

Following the disappointing start at the box office, future plans for Horizon: An American Saga haven’t publicly changed. The first sequel, Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2, has already been completed and is set to hit the big screen in wide release on August 16. Release dates for the third and fourth parts have not yet been announced, though the former started production in May (per The Hollywood Reporter). The reactions to the film have been extremely mixed, with some critics, like CinemaBlend’s Mike Reyes, calling it an “all-out cinematic experience," and others calling it a disjointed mess.

We’ll have to wait and see if the three-hour ensemble-led western will get a box office bump from the Independence Day holiday this week and show some legs as we get deeper into the summer (stay tuned for my box office column this Sunday).

Stephen King Is A Big Fan Of A Quiet Place: Day One

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 isn’t the only movie that debuted on the big screen this past weekend that Stephen King has thoughts about. While it’s unclear if the author personally went to see Kevin Costner’s latest western, but he did go to see Hollywood’s latest studio horror release, and he apparently left the theater impressed.

Stephen King posted on social media on Sunday that he went to go see director Michael Sarnoski’s A Quiet Place: Day One, and he was taken aback by the scale of the setting and the intimacy of the story. The prequel to John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place: Part II is set in Manhattan on the day of an alien invasion, but the principal character arc involves a woman dying from cancer (Lupita Nyong’o) who simply wants to get a slice of pizza at her favorite restaurant in Harlem. King wrote,

I can’t say that I personally agree with King’s take here (as expressed in my Quiet Place: Day One CinemaBlend review, I don’t think it did nearly enough to differentiate itself from its franchise predecessors), but his views do line up with the majority consensus among critics, with others expressing a more significant appreciation for the horror of the sound-sensitive extraterrestrials and the bond between Lupita Nyong’o’s character and a stranger (Joseph Quinn) she meets mid-apocalypse.

While having the best opening weekend yet for a movie in the Quiet Place series, the film opened behind the blockbusters goliath that is Inside Out 2, which is currently dominating the box office. The horror prequel is now playing in theaters everywhere.

Graveyard Shift Coming To 4K UHD From Kino Lorber

It’s been a minute since physical media collectors have been able to add a new upgrade to the movie/TV sections of their Ultimate Stephen King collection. Scream Factory released the first Blu-ray edition of The Shining miniseries back in March, and all has been quiet in the months since then. Thankfully, that drought ended this week thanks to the folks at Kino Lorber. The boutique home video company has revealed upcoming plans to make the first 4K UHD for director Ralph S. Singleton’s Graveyard Shift.

The best version of the 1990 horror film is presently the Blu-ray that Scream Factory produced in July 2020, but that package is now out of print, and Kino Lorber has promised an upgrade. While special features have not been revealed, the movie itself is a new HDR/DV Master that has been created from a 4K scan of the original camera negative.

Kino Lorber already has a well-established positive reputation among Stephen King fans, as Graveyard Shift will be the fourth King adaptation that the company has brought to 4K UHD. They have also released excellent versions of Rob Reiner’s Misery, Fraser Clarke Heston's Needful Things, and Lewis Teague’s Cujo. In each case, the movie has never looked better on home video.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not a big Graveyard Shift fan. As much as I appreciate Brad Dourif’s The Exterminator and the practical monster effects at the end, the film is among titles in the legacy of Stephen King adaptations that I describe as Kingsploitation. It doesn’t do an effective job expanding the short story on which it’s based, and is stocked exclusively with brutish, unlikable characters.

All that being said, I’m planning on putting in a pre-order to Kino Lorber for the 4K UHD at the first opportunity to do so.

Recommendation Of The Week: "Drunken Fireworks"

In the last month or so, I’ve used this Recommendation Of The Week section to highlight the great stories featured in You Like It Darker, but I’m breaking from that pattern this week in light of the fact that this column is being published on Independence Day. That’s not going to happen again for another few years, so I’m jumping on this opportunity to suggest you all take a moment today to read the humorous “Drunken Fireworks” – a perfect short story for the holiday.

“Drunken Fireworks” was initially released exclusively as an audiobook narrated by Tim Sample in the summer of 2015, but it was included in the collection The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams later that same year. Similar to Dolores Claiborne, the setup involves a protagonist at a police station giving their account of felonious events and explaining their side of the story. In this tale, a blue-collar Yankee named Alden McCausland recounts how he and his wife got into a conflict with the Massimos – the family that lives across the lake from their summer home. Every year, the McCauslands try and put on spectacular fireworks show for the community, but the Massimos always upstage them. Alden nonetheless keeps trying to outdo them… but escalation mixed with excessive alcohol consumption results in disaster.

We have now come to the end of this week’s edition of The King Beat, but I’ll be back next Thursday with a fresh collection of news stories from the world of Stephen King. In the meantime, you can keep track of all King-related projects for both the big and small screens with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

SPOILERS are ahead for A Quiet Place: Day One.

I’ll never forget seeing the original A Quiet Place movie. At the time, I wouldn’t have counted myself as a big horror fan (which has changed a lot since), but my friend and I decided to catch a screening of the 2018 hit film, and we walked out in love with John Krasinski’s original concept. I’ve since made it a tradition to go see A Quiet Place movies in theaters, including its prequel Day One, which I’ll admit I’ve been unsure whether it would hit the same. Now that I’ve fallen for another movie in the franchise with this new release, I want to discuss how it connects to my hopes for Part III.

A Quiet Place: Day One was based on a story by John Krasinski, but handed off to Pig director Michael Sarnoski to write and direct. While I initially didn’t understand why the main series would pause Part III to deliver this installment, I absolutely appreciated this standalone story and now I have some thoughts regarding how I’d like Day One and Part III to connect.

I Was Worried About A Quiet Place Prequel, But I Loved Day One 

Generally, I’m so tired of prequels. I’m frustrated with filmmakers deciding to over explain the origin of a character I like just because there’s facts behind a specific franchise doing well at the box office. Going into Day One, I had those reservations (especially after CinemaBlend’s 2-star A Quiet Place: Day One review), but I’m so happy I went out to see it in theaters along with a ton of A Quiet Place fans during opening weekend. I thankfully found the movie to be another really impressive and even unexpected entry not only into this franchise, but any franchise.

Rather than Day One getting too into the weeds of the origin of the aliens, Krasinski and Sarnoski used the movie as an opportunity to tell a very human story with more attention on its characters than providing some kind of exhaustive and generic summer alien movie with A Quiet Place slapped on the title. I loved the concept of it being told from the perspective of Lupita Nyong’o’s Samira, a woman living in hospice for a terminal condition. How would someone who already has been preparing to die deal with the end of the world? I found the storyline following Samira’s perspective throughout the movie to be really original, captivating and, most of all, moving.

The Relationship Between Eric And Samira Was A Real Highlight 

Samira’s character arc in Day One was only elevated by Joseph Quinn’s Eric, a British law student who finds himself alone and very terrified by the end of days he is suddenly confronted with. However, when he looks into the sweet eyes of a cat named Frodo and happens upon its owner, Samira, he finds purpose and solace in navigating the terrors New York City is dealing with during the alien invasion. I found the relationship between Samira and Eric to be the most captivating element of Day One. Despite them being complete strangers, an unspeakable bond between them forms that has each of them instinctively taking care and wanting the best for the other.

A lot of alien invasion movies focus on this 'every man for himself' mentality that could surface in humans when they are met with the potential of death and destruction. I appreciated Day One’s empathetic approach to the end of days through these two people. That is particularly illustrated through Samira’s ruthless hunt for one of the last slices of Patsy’s pizza throughout the movie. While most people were crowding to a boat to get to safety, she risked her life to get to Harlem to experience a slice of nostalgia she’s been longing for before her death. While Eric could have been characterised as someone who finds her off her rocker for going to Harlem for pizza instead of to safety, he joins her on her mission and even risks his life big time for both Frodo and Samira. In the end, Samira risks her life to get Eric to the ship.

How I Hope Day One Influences The Storytelling In Part 3

While Samira ultimately goes back to Harlem and dies there, Eric and Frodo get on the boat, notably with Djimon Hounsou’s Henri, who links the prequel to the last Quiet Place movie. If you may recall from A Quiet Place Part II’s ending, Henri was the leader of a group of survivors that welcomes Regan and Emmett to their community. Henri dies in Part II, but what if Eric and Frodo are still among the survivors of the community we have yet to meet?

By the end of Part II, Millicent Simmonds’ Regan is still separated from her mother and siblings alongside Cillian Murphy’s Emmett. Regan finds a way to kill one of the aliens herself, which could prove to be very helpful in humanity’s fight to survive. Following the events of Day One now telling the story of how Eric got on one of the rescue boats, I hope Part III will bring Joseph Quinn’s Eric (and Frodo the Cat) back and make him a new ally to Regan and Emmett!

Since it’s now been years since Part II was filmed, I imagine Part III will have to have some sort of time jump to explain Regan and her brother Marcus suddenly being older (Part II was filmed in 2019). Perhaps Regan is leading some sort of charge to kill the aliens once and for all and enlists the other survivors, including Eric, to do so. I want Eric to return to the fold because I found his arc in the prequel to be memorable, and it could lend itself to a more complete arc where he becomes a major part of saving Earth after being visibly panicked and scared in the first days of the invasion. I could particularly see some sweet moments unfolding between Eric and Regan. Quinn is such a solid talent, and I hope he finds his way in the next Quiet Place movie!

While Paramount previously announced A Quiet Place Part III as among upcoming horror movies, we don’t currently know when it’s coming. We’ll keep you updated here on CinemaBlend!

Major spoilers for A Quiet Place: Day One lie ahead, so read ahead at your own discretion.

The newly released A Quiet Place: Day One takes the John Krasinski-birthed franchise into uncharted and fascinating territory. More specifically, Michael Sarnoski’s spinoff moves the action from a secluded location in Upstate New York to the bustling NYC and also features new protagonists. Despite that, the 2024 movie release does have ties to what’s come before, as its ending links to a narrative thread established in 2021’s Part II. CinemaBlend got to discuss a bit of that with Sarnoski himself, who also shared some details on the cat at the center of his horror movie.

What Happens At The End Of Day One And How Does It Connect To A Quiet Place: Part II?

Fans may remember that in the franchise’s second installment, Regan Abbott (Millicent Simmonds) and Cillian Murphy (Emmett) reached an island populated by survivors of the alien invasion. Said group was led by an unnamed man played by Djimon Hounsou, who returned in the latest movie. In Part II, Hounsou’s character mentioned that the U.S. National Guard vacated people to islands after learning that the aliens (who we have questions about) can’t swim. Though only two of the dozen vessels made it out to sea before being attacked.

Day One shows those two ships making their way to new land, and two of the newly introduced characters in the prequel are ultimately among the passengers. Eric (Joseph Quinn) manages to make it at the last minute alongside the lovable cat, Frodo. That’s because the feline’s owner, terminally ill woman Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) lures the creatures away from them to give the pair time. That poses the question of whether or not the two are on the island by the events of Part II.

Michael Sarnoski Shared Some Thoughts On Frodo’s Fate

Our own ReelBlend podcast was fortunate enough to speak with writer/director Michael Sarnoski for a yet-to-be released bonus episode. Our hosts directly asked the filmmaker if fans might see the cat if they rewatch A Quiet Place: Part II. He spoke to that point and weighed in on the notion of Eric being present somewhere during the scenes set on the island:

So, on the whole, the Pig director can’t say with complete certainty that if fans watch the second movie now, they’ll see Frodo – who was played by two cats in Day One – chilling in the backdrop. After all, it doesn’t seem that the filmmakers had thought that far ahead while making the 2021 flick. However, if people were to see a furry friend that resembles Frodo, then they could peg said pet as the character. That would mostly be head canon, of course, but that’s certainly better than nothing, I’d say.

All the while, Day One does nod at the first two films in some subtle ways. For instance, there’s a scene in which Sam hides from the creatures under a fountain and shares a sweet scene with two kids. That moment parallels the waterfall moment between Lee (John Krasinski) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) Abbott from the first movie. Michael Sarnoski spoke to CinemaBlend about those easter eggs during a separate interview, explaining that he had to find a balance when it came to inserting such references. 

Though we can’t officially say that Part II features connective tissue to the prequel in regard to a Frodo cameo, fans of the scene-stealing feline should find comfort in the fact that he survived the movie. That could mean that he – and possibly Eric – could theoretically return in the upcoming A Quiet Place Part III (if they weren’t killed amid the island attack in Part II). It would certainly be great to see the furry hero again, and we should keep our fingers crossed for such a cameo.

Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for ReelBlend’s full interview with Michael Sarnoski, which will be released soon, and read up on upcoming horror movies. You can also see A Quiet Place: Day One in theaters now, and know that the first two films in the franchise are streamable with a Paramount+ subscription. 

The Quiet Place movies are not what one would call exposition friendly films. Because characters have to stay almost entirely silent lest they be attacked and mauled to death, there aren’t exactly a lot of opportunities in the stories for people to sit down together and explain everything they know about what’s going on in the world and what’s happening on the planet. This is a relief in some ways, as too many films tend to overburden audiences with explanations, but it also means that we are now three features into the series and still know exceptionally little about the principal antagonists of the canon. It’s been revealed they are sensitive to high frequency sound and don’t function well in water, but that’s about it.

With the newly released A Quiet Place: Day One being a prequel, there was some hope that the franchise would shed some light about the big alien invasion that led to a worldwide reduction in volume… but it didn’t exactly deliver on that front. Instead, I still find myself asking seven key questions about the otherworldly creatures from the popular horror series and wondering if future installments may hold the answers.

What Are We Supposed To Call The Aliens?

This one is pretty basic, and I’m actually shocked we don’t have an answer for it yet. From xenomorphs and facehuggers in the Alien franchise to the various species in Star Wars and Star Trek, creating an identifiable name for a new race of extraterrestrial fiends is Pop Culture 101 stuff… and yet, after three movies, there is still no widely accepted name for the otherworldly monsters in the Quiet Place franchise. There is no instance in any of the three movies where characters try to identify them as a group, and nothing has specifically stuck among audience. This would be a nice thing for the series to fix in the next installment, if not just to aide fan conversation.

Do The Aliens Have A Ship In Orbit?

At this point in the Quiet Place franchise, I have zero expectations of learning about the home world of the aliens, as that would be material difficult to tackle in the kinds of stories that are being told. That being said, I do have queries about how the creatures actually got to Earth. In both A Quiet Place: Day One and the prologue in A Quiet Place Part II, we see the aliens fall to the sky like a global meteor storm, but did they fly in from a ship? Is there some kind of massive interstellar vehicle parked above the Earth’s atmosphere that they deployed from?

If The Aliens Don’t Have A Ship, How Did They Travel Through The Vacuum Of Space?

I actually hope that there is an alien ship out in orbit in the Quiet Place films, as a lack of one opens up multiple more questions. For example: how did they survive flying around in the vacuum of space? Clearly they have an adaptable biology working in their favor, as they are seemingly able to do quite well living in Earth’s atmosphere, but if we’re honing even a little close to reality (and yes, I realize this is science-fiction), it doesn’t make any sense that the monsters could fly around without any kind of protective equipment or special resources.

If The Aliens Can’t See, How Did They Find Earth?

Here is another issue that crops up if the aliens don’t have a ship: how did they find Earth and initiate a coordinated attack? Even if they can somehow survive in the vacuum of space and propel themselves through it, the standout thing we know about them is that they can’t see but have hyper-sensitive hearing. There is no sound in space, so how could they find our planet without the ability to perceive light?

How Did The Aliens End Up In Space?

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the aliens can naturally exist in space and also have special planet-hunting senses that allow them to seek out worlds without sight. But how did they get into space to begin with? The fact that they crash land like meteors suggests that they don’t have some kind of propulsion system built into their carapaces, and they don’t fly; they crawl and climb. So how did they actually leave their home world and get to Earth?

Are The Aliens Sentient?

Are the aliens in the Quiet Place franchise intelligent? That seems like kind of a weird question to ask about an antagonist three movies into a series, but it’s a question that doesn’t presently have an answer. Executing a coordinated attack on Earth suggests that the creatures do have some kind of intelligence, but they otherwise seem pretty mindless – instinctively going after any sound they hear and instantly going into attack mode. They don’t seem to communicate with one another, but we can’t take extraterrestrial telepathy off the table. We also can’t totally rule out the idea that the creatures are merely weapons of another more intelligent species that is hanging out in orbit until all of humanity is wiped out.

Why Are The Aliens Actually On Earth?

There is no questioning that the aliens in the Quiet Place movies pose an extreme, extinction-level threat to Earth… but we don’t really know why any of it is happening. Are they hunting humans as food? (Because these are PG-13 movies, we don’t actually see what the aliens are doing to the people they attack). Are they getting all life out of the way so that they can start mining for some kind of special resource the planet has? Are they empire-builders setting up a new base of operations in an intergalactic war? Not knowing the answer is arguably scarier – and this is a horror franchise, after all – but I have to admit to my own curiosity.

A Quiet Place: Day One is now playing in theaters, having just had a terrific opening weekend at the box office. It’s pretty hard to believe that this will be the last installment of the series, so stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for news about more projects from this franchise (projects that will perhaps find ways to answer one or more questions posed above). To learn about all of the other scary films that are on their way to theaters in the coming weeks and months, check out our Upcoming Horror Movies guide.

After the massive success of the first two A Quiet Place movies, John Krasinski made the decision to take a break from directing the franchise and produce a spinoff based on the sci-fi/horror world. The latest installment in the series is Michael Sarnoski’s A Quiet Place: Day One, which comes from a story that the writer/director developed alongside Krasinski. The story is unique in that it's set in New York City and solely focuses on the beginning of the alien invasion that brought blind and deadly monsters to earth. For the most part, the spinoff operates separately from its predecessors, but it does nod to the previous films And Sarnoski explained to CinemaBlend just how all of those links came together.

When our own Corey Chichizola sat down with Michael Sarnoski to talk about the one of the latest 2024 movie releases, the filmmaker spoke about including references to the movie that started it all. As Sarnoski explained, there variables that needed to be considered when placing "little homages" in his movie:

There are several cool easter eggs throughout the flick. For example, during the movie, Lupita Nyong’o’s character, Samira, hides in a fountain to avoid the creatures. This very much harkens back to a key sequence in the first movie where John Krasinski’s Lee Abbott and his son, Marcus, go to a waterfall in order to talk to each other and get away from the constant state of complete silence they must live in in order to survive. 

As Michael Sarnoski shared, he found that it was important to strike a “balance” between paying homage to the first movie and not repeating all the rules of the world that have previously been established in the first two movies. The original started with day 89 of the invasion before jumping to day 472, which is where the core story takes off. The first two installments take place in the countryside, so Day One really amps up the thrills be moving the action to New York City, which is one of the noisiest places in the world. (That info comes from NY Mag’s reporting of record noise complaints from its citizens.) As nerve-wracking as that seems, it definitely adds to the stakes and energy of this latest entry in the franchise.

This time around, Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o leads the cast as a terminally ill woman, who finds herself in an intense survival situation when aliens begin to invade the city. Also among the cast are Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou and Eliane Umuhire. Day One has left critics split over how it adds to the franchise overall. And the A Quiet Place: Day One review from our own Eric Eisenberg expressed less-than-positive sentiments. Though based on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences mostly seem to dig it. 

It's not easy to build upon an established franchise organically and put your own stamp on it. However, it seems Michael Sarnoski was able to do that and use a cerebral approach when doing so. And it makes sense because, after all, you can't move forward without acknowledging the past. 

You can check out A Quiet Place: Day One for yourself in theaters now! And stream the first two films using a Paramount+ subscription.

The horror genre has been thriving for years now, to the joy of fans. While some of the best horror movies returned to theaters with new sequels, filmmakers also brought wholly original concepts to life. Chief among them is John Krasinski's growing franchise A Quiet Place, which is back in theaters with the prequel Day One. A Fans have a nickname for the sound-driven creatures, but director Michael Sarnoski told us what they are called on set. And it’s not what I expected.

A Quiet Place: Day One was one of the most highly anticipated upcoming horror movies of the year, offering a new take on the sensory franchise. As you can see in the video above, I had the privilege of speaking with the cast and director about the prequel, and Sarnoski told me what the aliens are refered to on set. In his words:

Pretty twisted, right? Considering how horrifying the aliens are throughout all three Quiet Place movies so far, a cheery name like "Happy" is definitely surprising. This is especially true since there are so many other, more terrifying names being thrown around online. 

Sarnoski's comments reveal the origin of "Happy" which started getting tossed around when the creates were being designed by ILM. That name doesn't seem to be officially used in-universe, but it's the closest thing to an official title that we've got. 

CinemaBlend's A Quiet Place: Day One review praised the movie's scares, but thought that it wasn't quite as effective as John Krasinski's previous two installments. But with the new chapter in theaters, now is the time for audiences to judge for themselves. 

By comparison, Day One delivers way more aliens or "Happy" than its predecessors in the Quiet Place franchise. In the first two, The Abbott family is trying to avoid a handful of creatures, as they're in a more remote area. But New York City is loud, so there are countless aliens throughout the prequel's 99-minute runtime. 

A Quiet Place Part II showed a clip of what it was like when the aliens first arrived, including Emily Blunt's wild bus stunt. But Day One live entirely in that chaos, with Lupita Nyong'o's protagonist Sam having to depend on stranger Eric (Joseph Quinn) to survive.  

A Quiet Place: Day One is in theaters now. Be sure to check out the 2025 movie release dates to plan your trips back to the theater next year. 

A Quiet Place was a huge box office hit when it was released in 2018, with its largely dialogue-free scripts ramping up the intensity of the theatrical experience. That paved the way for a sequel a few years later, and now we’re going to see where it all began, in the upcoming horror movie from director Michael Sarnoski. With A Quiet Place: Day One’s release date approaching on June 28, critics have had the opportunity to screen the post-apocalyptic series’ third offering, and critics aren’t in agreement over what they’ve seen.

In the timeline of A Quiet Place, the new installment takes place around the same time as A Quiet Place: Part II’s prologue, which shows Earth being invaded by sightless extraterrestrial beings with an acute sense of hearing. Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn star, with Djimon Hounsou reprising his role from the sequel. So what are the critics saying? In CinemaBlend’s review of A Quiet Place: Day One, our own Eric Eisenberg says this premise has run out of steam, with the prequel making no effort to bring any fresh perspective to the aliens or the franchise’s world. He rates the film 2 out of 5 stars, writing: 

May Abdulbaki of ScreenRant agrees the franchise has overstayed its welcome, saying the prequel lacks emotional depth and creativity, has a weak storyline and underdeveloped characters. If that isn’t enough, Abdulbaki also says the creatures are less scary than in the previous two movies. The critic rates the movie 2 stars out of 5 and says:  

The above critics, however, may be in the minority, because others, like Jordan Hoffman of EW find Day One to be thrilling and even quite touching in its non-alien moments. The critic likes seeing how the invasion affected a big city like New York, giving the movie a B+ and writing: 

David Rooney of THR agrees that setting A Quiet Place: Day One in New York makes all the difference, as well as focusing the story around found family instead of parents protecting their children. The prequel proves, according to Rooney, the franchise is far from tapped out. In the critic’s words: 

Kate Erbland of IndieWire grades the movie a B, praising Lupita Nyong’o’s performance and saying the story adds new layers to the franchise and is able to stand on its own merits. Erbland continues: 

Ahead of its theatrical release on Friday, June 28, the alien invasion movie is drawing mostly positive assessments from those who have seen it, holding an 87% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, some critics think Michael Sarnoski doesn’t do enough creatively with the world he inherited, resulting in a less-than-scary offering. Will you be giving A Quiet Place: Day One a try? Be sure to check out what else is hitting theaters soon with our 2024 movie release calendar.  

When preparing to see the new installment of a film franchise for review, I always have an internal debate about whether or not I should revisit the previous movies so that they are fresh in my mind as the new story unfolds. In some cases, I decide to do it (just this week, I decided to rewatch both X and Pearl before screening and reviewing MaXXXine), but director Michael Sarnoski’s A Quiet Place: Day One is an instance where I opted to pass. I simply reasoned that the new feature is a prequel, and thus, it shouldn’t naturally be informed by events that transpire in the canon’s future.

In retrospect, this turned out to be a smart decision – but not for the reason I thought it would be: if I had A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II fresh in my mind while watching A Quiet Place: Day One, I imagine I would have been even more bored and miserable recognizing that this franchise’s premise has truly been ridden into the ground.

The first sequel in this hit series was able to mostly get away with doing more of the same by essentially being an epilogue to the original, but the latest chapter has even less to contribute creatively and does so by doing the bare minimum when it comes to the characters. If there are still fresh ideas that can help build out this franchise, none of them are apparent here.

While John Krasinski isn’t back in the director’s chair for A Quiet Place: Day One, his finger prints remain with producer and “story by” credits – with the screenplay itself attributed to Michael Sarnoski (who directs the film as his follow up to the stellar 2021 drama Pig starring Nicolas Cage). Essentially expanding on the prologue from A Quiet Place Part II and moving the setting to New York City, the prequel explores the week or so when the world went to hell following the invasion of violent and sound-sensitive extraterrestrials (which somehow still don’t have a pop culture-friendly moniker after three movies).

Lupita Nyong’o stars as Samira – a poet dying from an advanced cancer who finds herself in Manhattan on the eponymous Day One when her hospice goes on a day trip to a marionette show. When the alien assault begins, many die, but those who live quickly understand that they must stay as quiet as possible in order to continue surviving. While the military does flybys in helicopters informing people to head to the South Street Seaport for transport to safety, the comfortably doomed Samira instead opts to head north to Harlem so that she can have a final slice at her favorite pizza place.

Being a prequel should not give A Quiet Place: Day One a pass to not further expand on the world of the franchise.

Prequels are always challenging given that they are telling a story that the audience vaguely already knows, but the best ones are successful because they find ways to change one’s perspective on the narratives that follow it in continuity. A Quiet Place: Day One opts for a different tactic: it opts not to do anything substantial, seemingly as to not disrupt the revelations that are made in the other two films. The first movie illustrated the alien’s sensitivity to high volume, high frequency sound; Part II introduced the idea that they don’t do well in water; and Day One… contributes absolutely nothing.

This lack of innovation is bad not just detrimental for the narrative, but it’s something that also infects the atmosphere. To put it bluntly, A Quiet Place: Day One isn’t scary in the slightest. There is no sequence equitable to the birth in the first movie or the suffocating safe in the second, as the film instead is content doing the exact same setup over and over and over again: things are quiet, there is a sudden loud noise, chaos erupts, and characters have to run for their lives and try and find a new haven. There’s obviously plenty of that in the movie’s two predecessors, and this one just puts that track on repeat. It takes no time at all to feel tired, and as much as you want it to, there is never a scene that comes along to significantly shake things up.

Lupita Nyong’o is terrific, but A Quiet Place: Day One has significant character issues it can’t overcome.

While Samira’s fatal diagnosis does have an impact on the stakes surrounding her character/ predictability of the film’s conclusion, it can be said that she proves to be a worthy protagonist – with great credit belonging to the tremendous charisma of Lupita Nyong’o. The protagonist’s realist perspective and acceptance of her fate provide her with a caustic attitude that has an “I don’t give a shit” charm, and her unique perspective on life allows for her greatest goal to be something as seemingly trivial as a good slice of New York pizza. She is inarguably the movie’s greatest strength (along with her sweet emotional support cat Frodo, who doesn’t cause nearly as much trouble as you think he might going into the movie)

The big drawback is that A Quiet Place: Day One doesn’t provide Samira with any opportunity to execute a proper arc, and adding surprisingly little to the mix is Joseph Quinn’s Eric – a stranger whom Samira meets during her journey uptown. We get to know Lupita Nyong’o’s character because she is introduced at a point in the film when characters can still talk and deliver significant exposition, but Eric is mostly an empty vessel after he is introduced in the second act, and we get to know almost nothing about him beyond that he is a law student and that his family lives in Kent, England. Quinn’s emotional performance allows the audience to empathize with him in his most terrified moments (he proves prone to panic attacks), but we’re never given the opportunity to connect with him in any deeper way.

In retrospect, there isn’t anything offered or answered for fans in A Quiet Place: Day One that isn’t featured in the aforementioned A Quiet Place Part II prologue – and that’s a comparison of a 100-minute feature with a 12-minute sequence. It’s a major disappointment on just about all levels, and pretty much kills any interest in future stories from this world.

I’m one of those “I don’t like horror” people, meaning I’m the guy that “real horror fans” hate. I’ll claim I don’t like horror movies, and then I’ll come out and happily talk about how much I loved the first IT movie or that I’m a big fan of Jordan Peele. Maybe to most people, there’s no real difference between these films and your average slasher, but to me, I feel like there is. This difference is exactly why I love both A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II, but I have significant reservations going into the A Quiet Place: Day One release date this week.

I’m interested in seeing A Quiet Place Part III if that day ever comes, and there could be any number of spinoffs that might also be something I’d like to see. But an origin story for this particular film franchise may have stripped out everything about A Quiet Place that I love.

The Quiet Place Movies Were Unique Theatrical Experiences 

A Quiet Place was a massive box office hit when it was released, and a big part of the reason for that was likely the word of mouth that came from people seeing the movie in theaters. The theatrical experience of A Quiet Place was unlike almost anything I had ever seen, or in this case heard... or I guess actually not heard before.

A Quiet Place was built on its silence. The monsters followed sounds, and so the characters did all they could to be as quiet as possible. It was a unique angle for a horror movie, one that will likely make for an equally unique Halloween Horror Nights house at Universal Orlando this year.

A Quiet Place virtually required silence from its audience, so much of the movie takes place with little to no noise that silence is simply required for an audience to hear everything that is there to be heard. Still, A Quiet Place got engagement from its audience on a whole other level.

The screaming and jumping that comes with many horror movies is part of what I don’t love about that genre. I’m easily startled by jumpscares, and it’s difficult to eat popcorn when you’re afraid you’re going to spill it all over yourself when the monster jumps out to eat somebody. At the same time, the screaming and jumping are part of the communal experience of horror films. Viewers are expected to do that sometimes and it’s part of the fun. If everybody is scared together, everybody is having fun.

But A Quiet Place asked people to be quiet. It was like the audience was afraid that if they made too much noise, the people on the movie screen would be heard. People who might otherwise have let a yell out in a different horror movie tried to stifle it. We all tried to support each other and will each other to remain silent.

Something about that experience was a big part of the reason that A Quiet Place was so much fun to see. The filmmakers knew this, with the release of A Quiet Place Part II, being held off so that people could see it in theaters rather than simply releasing it digitally as so many films did during the pandemic theater closure.

A Quiet Place Day One’s Origin Story Status Puts It At A Disadvantage

The problem is that A Quiet Place: Day One, by virtue of its premise and place in the story, strongly indicates that all of the focus on silence will be significantly downplayed, if not missing entirely. It’s not to say there won’t be scenes where people are very quiet to avoid being killed by a monster, which happens in most horror movies at one point or another. However, the movie’s overall atmosphere of silence will probably be gone.

A Quiet Place: Day One is basically an alien invasion movie. The monsters are going to come and the humans are going to fight, run and hide in equal measure. The Quiet Place: Day One trailer shows us more scenes of the creatures killing people than both previous films combined have. That’s not surprising or even a bad choice; it makes sense considering what’s happening.

But we have to guess that the fact that silence equals protection isn’t something humanity is going to easily be able to discover. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing people would even guess at first. Even if some people can sneak past monsters by being quiet, that’s a far cry from discovering they are without sight.

And even if some people discover the truth, disseminating that information to the world is going to be difficult. Assuming the title of A Quiet Place Day One is mostly literal, and the movie only covers the first day or so of the invasion. That’s just not enough time for people to make too many groundbreaking discoveries about their attackers when billions of people are just trying to survive. If that were to happen, in order to shift the movie into a more familiar A Quiet Place vibe, I’m not sure it would work right as a story.

 I Have My Doubts About Day One, But I Hope I'm Wrong

So A Quiet Place: Day One feels like it’s going to be a more traditional horror movie. i.e. film where a group of main characters try to avoid getting killed by a big scary monster. Some will succeed, others will fail. That doesn’t mean it will be a bad movie. It could still be a very good version of that sort of film. It just doesn’t sound like A Quiet Place, but instead like every other horror movie ever. I'm not excited about that sort of movie.

I could be wrong, and I hope I am. I watch every movie hoping to like it, so I’ll be optimistic when I see A Quiet Place: Day One. Perhaps there’s a way the movie will thread this needle and find the way to tell an origin story without losing what made A Quiet Place special.

Halloween Horror Nights is still months away but the 2024 event at both Universal Studios Hollywood and Florida is already shaping up to be incredible. This year HHN has been putting focus on its original houses, as all the locations announced so far in Orlando have not been based on any previously existing movie or characters. We knew that would change, and now it has with what may be the most unique Halloween Horror Nights house in years, A Quiet Place.

This morning Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights announced that a house based on the first two A Quiet Place films will debut this year at both of the events at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Florida. It marks the seventh location announced in Florida, and the first in Hollywood. As a fan of the Quiet Place film franchise, which is adding a third film this month, I’m excited, but I do have one question. How in the hell is this going to work?

HHN Is All About Screams, But A Quiet Place Is Not 

Horror is all about scaring you, and in most cases that means making its victims audibly scream. Halloween Horror Nights relies on jump scares and terrifying imagery in order to get the people moving through the house to react, usually by screaming. But a house based on A Quiet Place is going to, by necessity, be quiet, right?

The description of the A Quiet Place House has me intrigued. HHN says the house will use “unique sound design” and special effects, along with the scare actors performances, in order to convey the terror of the films in a live setting in a way that mirrors the films. Interestingly, American Sign Language (ASL) will also be used in the house, a first for HHN, as a way to make the experience more authentic.

We've seen brand new movies become HHN houses before, but for this case, only locations from the first two films, including the family farm, will be recreated for the HHN house. 

The A Quiet Place: Day One release date is only a couple of weeks away, and while that may be the reason this announcement dropped now, it doesn't appear the new film will be incorporated into the house. Though we've seen easter eggs and references in HHN houses before, so something like that could happen.

Universal released a teaser trailer for the house as well. Check it out below.

I have so many questions about this. Will A Quiet Place actually be a quiet HHN house? Will the people moving through it try not to scream? Will different things happen to the visitors or the scareactors if people scream or if they don’t? A Quiet Place is one of the horror franchises I’ve enjoyed most in recent years specifically because the experience of watching it is so different from others. The Halloween Horror Nights version has the potential to be that too for this event, and that’s quite exciting.

Tickets Are On Sale Now For Halloween Horror Nights 

With the announcement of the first house for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood tickets have also gone on sale for the event which begins September 5. Seven more houses are set to be revealed for the event, along with the theme for the Terror Tram, the Halloween makeover for the iconic Universal Studios Backlot Tour. Three more houses are expected for the same event in Orlando.

Tickets for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida have been on sale, and that event also includes a new Premium Scream Night, where a limited number of tickets will be sold and entries into the houses will be staggered, allowing those that attend to visit all the houses with no lines. 

Growing a beard is easy for many people, but growing a really great looking one is not always so easy. When an actor grows a great bit of facial hair for a role, sometimes you just have to admire how much heavy lifting it does for the character. Like these 32 examples of great facial hair actors have grown for movies roles. 

Tom Hanks - Cast Away

Tom Hanks is usually clean-shaven in movies. Unless that movie is Cast Away when he grew one of the greatest beards in Hollywood history. It's easy to admire the commitment not just to the beard, but the wild, unkept nature of that amazing beard. It's truly a work of art in the sloppiest of ways. Sloppy in the best way. 

Hugh Jackman - Logan

The amount of work that Hugh Jackman has put in whenever he's starred as Wolverine in numerous movies is amazing. The beard is the easiest thing he has to do, given the shape he has to get himself in at the gym. But let's not discount how great the beard is in each out. It's sculpted just as much as his biceps. 

Kurt Russell - Tombstone

The great Kurt Russell has had some amazing facial hair over the years. The Hateful Eight comes to mind, and he's played Santa Claus. You have to say that his finest work came as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone. There may be no better facial hair movie than Tombstone and even then, Russell's amazing mustache is a stand-out. 

Robert Redford - Jeremiah Johnson

Robert Redford is another actor that, for the most part, stays pretty clean-shaven. Of course, in Jeremiah Johnson, he's goes way in the other direction with one of the greatest, bushiest, most meme-able beards ever. Of course, you can't hide the man's legendary good looks and the beard makes that so much more obvious. It's just spectacular. 

Harrison Ford - The Fugitive

Harrison Ford hasn't grown a beard for many roles, and you have to say his best was in the The Fugitive. It doesn't make it very far into the movie, as he shaves it when he escapes, but while he has it, it's a true beauty. It's a weird satisfying scene when he shaves it, too. 

Mark Hamill - Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

In the original Star Wars trilogy Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) was still a baby-faced kid. For the the final trilogy, Luke is a grizzled, worn-down Jedi and has taken on a look much more like his mentor, Obi Wan, than his younger self. It's a shocking moment when he turns around and he's got that beard, but it's wonderful all the same. 

Wes Bentley - The Hunger Games

Seneca Crane's beard, grown by actor Wes Bentley, is truly a sculpted work of art. Citizens of The Capital in The Hunger Games have some wild styles and Crane's beard is a perfect example. It almost looks like CGI is so well barbered. You need an artist to shave you to get a look that good. 

Daniel-Day Lewis - Gangs Of New York

Everything about Bill The Butcher's (Daniel Day-Lewis) hair choices is interesting. The greasy, matted-down hair is a perfect match to the handlebar mustache. While many growing a handlebar would look like a clown, it only makes Bill more fearsome. Like, it's terrifying and yet looks so darn good. 

Bill Murray - The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

The great Bill Murray usually doesn't act with a beard, but you can't play an undersea explorer without a good-looking beard. As Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Murray has one of the most dignified beards on this list. It's nothing over the top, it's just what you want from the character. 

Al Pacino - Serpico

Serpico's beard sounds like something Will Ferrell would say in an outtake for Anchorman, but really it's Al Pacino's beard as the character of the same name in the movie Serpico. It's a wonderful beard and one of the rare times Pacino has acted with one, especially a full beard. It's a beard that would make any man jealous. 

Tom Cruise - Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is an outrageous movie, due in no small part to Tom Cruise relatively small part. His character as the jerk of all jerks is so amazing and his look is as outrageous as anything else in the movie. It's hilarious and disturbing, just like his character. 

Robert Pattinson - The Lighthouse

Robert Pattinson claims that he hates having to grow facial hair for a role, but he sure does it well. The Lighthouse is maybe the best example of this, as he sports an amazing mustache in that movie. Not everyone can grow something that beautiful, so he should be proud, even if it annoyed him. 

Joaquin Phoenix - I'm Still Here

Joaquin Phoenix went all in on his method acting for I'm Still Here, in which he played a fictionalized version of himself. For the "role," he grew out his beard to immense proportions that was reminiscent of Jim Morrison before his death. His bizarre appearance on David Letterman (in character) remains one of Phoenix's finest moments, as viewers didn't know if it was real or fake (and Phoenix might not of either). The beard played a big role. 

Leonardo DiCaprio - The Revenant

In addition to his immense acting ability, Leonardo DiCaprio's baby-faced good looks are part of what has made him such a bankable star for so long. He rarely looks less than his handsome best. In The Revenant, however, he went all out to look like a grizzled fur trapper in the 19th century. It's not his best look, but it is still very good. 

Remi Malik - Bohemian Rhapsody

Freddy Mercury had an all-time great mustache and to play him, Remi Malik just had to have one similar. It might even be better, but for argument's sake, we'll call it a tie. It's an amazing 'stache and really helped Malik bring the singer back to life. 

Joe Pantoliano - The Matrix

Joe Pantoliano's character in The Matrix is really well defined by the actor's facial hair. It looks cool, like a lot of the style choices in the movie, but it also feels like you can't trust him. The mistrust is, of course, well warranted when he betrays the rest of the crew. 

Sean Connery - The Hunt For Red October

Sean Connery has had some great facial hair over the years, though the role he is most famous for, James Bond, was always clean-shaven. For this list though, we had to choose just the classic beard he grew for The Hunt For Red October. It's exactly what you expect from a career naval officer from any country. 

Dustin Hoffman - Hook

If you're going to play Captain Hook, you better have a great mustache. Dustin Hoffman certainly does not disappoint in Hook. Sure, it's far from a perfect movie, but you can't say that about Hoffman's awesome curly-cue mustache. 

Henry Cavill - Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Yes, Henry Cavill's mustache in Mission: Impossible - Fallout is a really great bit of facial hair. That's not the only reason it's on this list though. The mustache is infamous because while filming the movie, the Superman actor had to switch gears and do re-shoots for Justice League. The producers of Fallout didn't want him to shave, so he did the reshoots with the 'stache, then it was CGI'd out. It's not a great CGI job either, though it must have been an almost impossible task, no pun intended. 

Will Ferrell - Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy

A great mustache was a must in 1970s TV newsrooms and in Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrell's is one of the best ever. There is nothing fancy about it, no handlebars or curly cues, but it is a true beauty. It's a mustache that evokes complete trust in what the talking head is telling his audience. Stay classy, Ron Burgundy. 

John Krasinski - A Quiet Place

The director and star of A Quiet Place, John Krasinski, is often seen sporting a beard these days, but before he filmed that movie, his most well-known parts were usually clean-shaven. It's nothing fancy, like others on this list, but it is impressive. Just a great, full beard that anyone would be proud to grow. 

Jeff Bridges - The Big Lebowksi

Later in his career, Jeff Bridges has had facial hair for a lot of roles, but early on, he was often clean-shaven. Arguably the best role of his career, The Dude in The Big Lebowski, has the perfect facial hair for the character. It's slightly unkempt with just enough grey to make The Dude look wise and world-weary, and, of course, lazy. And The Dude was most definitely a lazy man. 

Chris Hemsworth - Thor

The best part about Chris Hemsworth's beard, when he plays Thor, is that it just keeps getting better with each movie. It looks fuller and more impressive with every new movie and it's a beard that we've all become so accustomed to, it's weird to see the actor without it, though before playing Thor in the MCU, he was often without it. 

Sylvester Stallone - Rocky IV

Rocky is one of the most iconic characters in film history. Most of the time, the boxer is clean-shaven, so that makes the awesome training montage in Rocky IV that much better when he grows the beard. You can imagine being stuck in the cold Siberian winter, but you can't imagine it without a beard, right? Neither could Sylvester Stallone while playing Rocky. 

George Clooney - Syriana

George Clooney is an impossibly handsome man, and when he grows beards for roles, it only enhances that. It's literally impossible for the man to not look completely on point no matter what. Even his beards are perfect, as it is in Syriana. 

Alan Rickman - Die Hard

There is something so magical about a perfectly sculpted beard that doesn't look perfectly sculpted. Such is the case for Alan Rickman in Die Hard. He is the dapper terrorist, who looks good as he does evil. Rickman's performance is legendary, and the beard has to be included in that legacy. 

Viggo Mortensen - The Road

The Road is one of the most intense post-apocalypse movies ever made and anyone who survived the end of the world would certainly have a scruffy beard. Viggo Mortensen grew a beauty for the movie to play a father trying to survive with his son. It looks like he has shaved in weeks, or even slept much in that time. He certainly hasn't bathed in a while. It takes dedication to grow a beard that looks this rough. 

Mandy Patinkin - The Princess Bride

For Homeland, Mandy Patinkin grew a monster beard, but maybe his best facial work came with a much more subtle work of facial art. His mustache in The Princess Pride is truly wonderful. It evokes the great Douglas Fairbanks or Cary Grant with its classic look, perfect for the role. 

Gerard Butler - 300

Everything about Gerard Butler in 300 is over-the-top. His physique, his acting, his fighting, and, of course, his beard. It's as masculine as a beard can get. It's as tough as his character and you almost expect the beard to win the war. 

Robert Downey, Jr. - Iron Man

Iron Man/Tony Stark has become one of the most iconic movie characters of the 21st Century and the goatee that Robert Downey, Jr. sports is equally iconic at this point. It's the perfect facial hair choice for the ego-driven Tony Stark. It's good-looking and confident, just like Stark. It's also not completely trustworthy, yet reassuring. It a tough line to walk and the beard works. 

Samuel L. Jackson - Pulp Fiction

Everything about Samuel L. Jackson's hair choices in Pulp Fiction is amazing. The hair on his head is great, the hair on his cheeks is great, and the handlebar mustache is great. It's hard to imagine Jules Winfield looking any differently. It especially all works together with the black suit he's in for much of the movie. 

Kenneth Branagh - Agatha Christie Movies

This one is a bit of an honorable mention because Kenneth Branagh didn't actually grow this work of art that his character Hercule Poirot has. He tried, but couldn't. It's such an iconic part of the character in the Agatha Christie novels, that it had to be perfect. And it is. So it might be a prop, but it's too amazing not to include. 

Alright, let’s have a chat. Say that you’re on a date, hanging out with friends, or maybe you’re just on your own, and the desire to watch a horror movie arises. You’re scared at first because you’ve never watched a horror movie; you don’t know how you’ll react to them. Are they all as terrifying as Midsommar and Hereditary seem to be?

Rest assured, readers, we have the solution to that. Today, I’ll review several great picks for horror movies for beginners, whether you want something with a little less horror or maybe a little more. Let’s get into it. 

Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist is a classic horror movie from the 1980s that Steven Spielberg co-wrote. The film follows a family who has to find a way to save their daughter when vengeful spirits kidnap her in their own home. Out of most horror movies, this one is very light on the jumpscares and mainly builds fright through suspense – mixed in with some pretty okay-ish CGI. 

Halloween (1978)

You can’t get more of a classic horror movie villain than Michael Myers. Halloween was released back in 1978 and told the story of a young woman acting as a babysitter the night of Halloween and how she has to survive the wrath of Michael Myers, an escaped killer from a mental facility. Halloween isn’t gorey but has excellent music, suspense, and an unforgettable villain. Out of all the Halloween movies, this one is still the best. 

The Fog (1980)

The Fog is a horror movie directed by John Carpenter that makes you question what you see in the fog. It focuses on a group of strangers who all have to survive this strange fog that takes over their town, which seems to contain evil forces. The movie isn’t scary, but it is a nice entrance into a more suspenseful horror. 

The Sixth Sense (1999)

M. Night Shyamalan’s best movies often involve some horror, and The Sixth Sense follows that. The film mainly focuses on a child psychologist with a patient who can see dead people, but of course, the classic Shyamalan twist makes this movie all the better. It’s not scary, per se – just exciting. 

Psycho (1960)

I mean, yes. I have to put Psycho on here. Directed by Hollywood legend Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho is based on the novel of the same name and follows the story of an investigator looking into the strange life of Norman Bates at the Bates Motel and how one interaction with a young woman and her disappearance changes everything. It’s black and white with no gore, but it's a great horror movie to start on. Trust me. 

Friday The 13th (1980)

The Friday the 13th movies were essentially some of the films that began the subgenre of slasher within horror, but the first movie isn’t even that bad. It focuses on a group of teenage counselors trying to survive a serial killer at their summer camp after a tragedy occurred years prior. While there are some messier scenes, it’s not that bad and has some great music. 

Beetlejuice (1988)

With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice releasing, it’s the perfect time to watch the first film. Beetlejuice stars Michael Keaton as the titular character, a “bio-exorcist” contacted by two ghosts to get humans to leave their home – but he has tricks up his sleeves. Look, Beetlejuice, truthfully, is probably the best entrance into horror. This movie is way more funny than scary, but it has enough creepy moments to dip your toes in horror. 

The Black Phone (2022)

Starring Ethan Hawke, The Black Phone is an excellent horror film that follows the story of a teenager who is abducted by a child murderer and can use a rotary dial phone to speak to past victims to find a way out. This film has a few gorier moments, but they’re pretty tame. And truthfully, the plot alone is so creative you’ll be sucked in. 

Happy Death Day (2017)

There are plenty of fantastic horror comedies, and Happy Death Day is one of them. The film follows a young woman who, when she is killed, is forced to relive the day over and over again to find the murderer. Yes, this is a horror version of Groundhog Day, and it’s the best. 

Gremlins (1984)

Gremlins is a comedy horror film that everyone has seen at least once. The film follows the story of a man who receives a strange creature called a mogwai. At first, it seems fine, but once they get fed past midnight, they turn into monsters that wreak havoc. The movie isn’t scary, but it has some good makeup and will make you chuckle at the monsters. 

Shaun Of The Dead (2004)

Shaun of the Dead is a classic comedy zombie movie directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg. The film follows a salesman who must survive the zombie apocalypse with his friends when the entirety of London falls. The zombies can sometimes be creepy, but trust me when I say you’ll be laughing a heck of a lot more than screaming. 

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Night of the Living Dead essentially created the zombie genre as a whole. This classic horror film from the 1960s, directed by George A. Romero, follows a group of survivors in Pennsylvania who must try to survive when they are all attacked by corpses that have come back to life. The movie features the slowest zombies ever, but they’re still pretty creepy – and powerfully told. 

Get Out (2017)

Jordan Peele’s movies are always hits; Get Out was his first big one. The movie follows a young Black man who travels to his Caucasian girlfriend’s house for the first time to meet her family, only to discover that they hold much darker secrets than ever before. There’s barely any gore in here—all the horror is in the storytelling and how evil humans can be. 

The Ring (2002)

Have you ever heard the phrase “Seven days?” Because it comes from here. Directed by Gore Verbinski and based on the Japanese horror film and novel of the same name, this movie follows the story of a journalist who discovers that when she watches a cursed tape, she will die in seven days—and now she must find a way to survive. Yes, the girl can be a little creepy, but truthfully, the movie isn’t that bad.

Insidious (2010)

When it comes to horror movies about demons, Insidious is pretty much the best you can get because it’s not “poop your pants” scary, but it’s effective in the way it scares. Directed by James Wan, the film follows a married couple who must find a way to save their son when he enters into a coma, and his body becomes host to several vengeful spirits and demons. There are a few jumpscares, but it’s nothing an average person can’t handle. 

Scream (1996)

This film isn’t scary, and I stand by it. Scream is the first in the Scream franchise, and it follows Sidney Prescott as she tries to avoid getting killed by Ghostface, a serial killer in her town. This movie is just a trope city, and there are undoubtedly bloody moments, but not enough to truly scare you. If anything, it’s a love letter to horror movies from decades before. 

Zombieland (2009)

Zombieland was one of the first zombie movies I ever watched, and I think it’s a great horror comedy for first-time viewers. It mainly follows four survivors as they try to survive the zombie apocalypse, but it’s the comedy that keeps you coming back for more. It’s so funny, and some of the ways the zombies are killed are hilarious. It’s one of Emma Stone’s best films. 

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

Starring David Naughton, An American Werewolf in London tells the story of two American backpackers who are attacked by a werewolf. One of them gets bitten, turning him into a werewolf when the moon rises. The scariest thing about this film is the realistic werewolf transformation, but other than that, it’s a great horror movie to start on. 

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

While the found-footage horror genre has only gotten bigger, I often credit The Blair Witch Project as the first to really set it off. The film focuses on a group of film students who are trying to make a documentary about a local legend, only to vanish. Their footage is found a year later—hence the name, “found footage.” The movie has a few scary movies but builds its scares on suspense. 

Jaws (1975)

Will you be scared of sharks a little after this? Sure, but Jaws is iconic for a reason. The film, directed by Steven Spielberg, follows a marine biologist and a shark hunter working together to take down a man-eating great white shark. Yes, the score is as iconic as you think it is.

Alien (1979)

To me, the original sci-fi horror movie was always Alien. The movie, directed by Ridley Scott, follows the space crew as they have to survive aliens that make their way into their vessel. Truthfully, I don’t see the aliens as too creepy—the only thing that’s truly scary is the alien popping out of someone’s chest, but it’s not that bad. 

The Shining (1980)

One of the best Stephen King adaptations is The Shining. Based on the novel of the same name, The Shining follows a family in which a writer takes on the position of off-season caretaker in a hotel, only for him to lose his mind while he’s there. The movie itself is built on suspense and doesn’t really have that many gory or scary moments—it’s just a greatly shot film.

Old (2021)

Old is an M. Night Shyamalan movie that follows a group of vacationers who realize that they are aging inexplicably quicker on a beach, to the point where they grow closer and closer to death with each passing hour. I enjoy this film a decent amount and think it’s excellent for first-time horror viewers, mainly because there’s barely any gore, and it’s an exciting concept. 

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)

For all my PG-13 peeps, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a great first-time horror movie. Based on novels of the same name, the film follows how horror stories written in an ancient book come to life, and it’s up to three teenagers to figure out how. The movie is creepy, eerie, and so much more – but it doesn’t quite cross the line of unwatchable. I love it. 

Carrie (1976)

Carrie is hands-down one of the best horror films to start watching. The film, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, follows a young woman who is bullied at school. She later finds out that she has telekinetic powers—ones she uses to exact revenge when she’s pushed too far. The film isn’t gory but expertly acted and brilliantly told. 

The Cabin In The Woods (2013)

This sci-fi comedy is everything. The Cabin in the Woods follows a group of close friends who go away to a remote cabin for a weekend. There, they all fall victim to different kinds of killers—only to find out that these killers aren’t who they thought they were. The twist is excellent; you have to watch it. It’s not scary at all. 

A Quiet Place (2018)

A Quiet Place is a great horror movie to start on. The film follows a family who are trying to live in a world where man-eating but blind monsters have taken out much of humanity. They have incredible hearing, and you're dead if you make a sound. The monsters can be a little creepy, but there’s so much more that makes this movie so good. 

Goosebumps (2015)

Goosebumps is an excellent PG-13 pick on here. Based on the R.L. Stine books of the same name, the film follows a group of kids and a fictionalized Stine as they struggle to capture all the monsters in the Goosebumps books when they come to live and terrorize their town. It stars Jack Black and is silly, goofy, and just a little scary – perfect for first-timers. 

The Birds (1963)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds follows the sudden invasion and attack of birds that look to kill in California and how it came to be. Yes, I know the premise sounds goofy, but it’s a well-shot film and a classic for a reason. 

Child’s Play (1988)

Child’s Play may sound like it’s for children, but it’s not. The film follows a widowed mother who gifts a doll to her son, unaware that a serial killer’s spirit possesses it and is looking to kill again. Look, this movie is goofy as heck. It is. It’s about a doll killing people – you’re not going to have nightmares after. Just make sure the kids don’t see it. 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Everyone needs a horror musical sometimes. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring Tim Curry, is based on the musical of the same name and follows an engaged couple who take refuge in a castle when their car breaks down, only to see that it’s occupied by several interesting and enigmatic people. That’s all I’ll say. Now, let’s do the Time Warp!

Mama (2013)

Starring Jessica Chastain, Mama tells the story of two girls who are brought home by their uncle after their parents die and are haunted by a strange entity. The spirit follows them to their new house. The film certainly focuses more on the love a mother can bring than anything else, but it’s perfect for first-time horror fans. 

With all these options, now I feel like watching some of the best horror movies ever – I think it’s time for a horror movie marathon. 

There was a time when seeing iconic horror movie villains such as Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees slashing up young, defenseless civilians was the genre’s main draw. However, these days, audiences have come to better appreciate the Scream Queens and Scream Kings who know how to hold their own against the likes of masked killers, vicious extraterrestrials, mischievous demons, and more. With that in mind, let’s take a minute to shine the spotlight on the clever and courageous heroes from the best horror movies of all time and point out what makes them worth rooting for.

Ash Williams (The Evil Dead Movies) 

The Ash we meet in 1981's The Evil Dead is completely in over his head, struggling desperately to defend himself against his possessed friends in whatever way he can find. However, by the end of 1987's Evil Dead II, when he replaces his severed hand with a working chainsaw, Bruce Campbell's most iconic role becomes one of the horror genre's grooviest heroes… even if he is prone to a few flubs and mishaps here and there.

Laurie Strode (Halloween) 

Out of all of the babysitters working in Haddonfield on All Hallow’s Eve, Laurie Strode is the only one who manages to survive the escaped Michael Myers' killing streak in 1978's Halloween. The young woman’s courage and avoidance of distracting vices in John Carpenter's quintessential slasher made the character the ultimate “final girl” and Jamie Lee Curtis the quintessential Scream Queen.

Ben (Night Of The Living Dead) 

Duane Jones made history as the first Black actor to play the lead hero in a horror movie with his role in 1968's Night of the Living Dead. Ben is the one character in George A. Romero's groundbreaking thriller who manages to keep a level head when struggling to survive against hungry reanimated corpses.

Nancy Thompson (A Nightmare On Elm Street) 

Played by Heather Langenkamp, Nancy Thompson certainly takes a little while to figure out how to defeat the subconscious-haunting Freddy Kreuger (Robert Englund) in writer and director Wes Craven’s supernatural slasher classic. Near the end of A Nightmare on Elm Street, when she realizes that bringing him into reality is the key, she turns the tables on him with a series of elaborate traps that predate Home Alone.

Ellen Ripley (Alien) 

Sigourney Weaver’s career-defining role of Ellen Ripley became the sole survivor of  1979’s Alien and, as a result, one of the most inspirational female heroes in horror movie history. Her previous experience contending with the Xenomorph provided her with the resilience and wherewithal to ensure there would be more survivors in 1986’s Aliens, making her one of the greatest female action heroes of all time.

Sidney Prescott (Scream) 

When you have been targeted by masked killers as many times as Sidney Prescott, you tend to pick up on a few helpful tips and tricks for survival. Even before the original Ghostface first struck in 1996's Scream, the tragic murder of her mother a year prior prompted Neve Campbell's character to be prepared for such things.

R.J. MacReady (The Thing) 

Easily one of Kurt Russell's best roles is R.J. MacReady in John Carpenter's The Thing. The pilot brings a well-conceived, no-nonsense approach to weeding out who among his fellow researchers is a shape-shifting alien in disguise while stranded at their outpost in the Arctic.

Elise Rainier (Insidious)

When your house (or, maybe, your child) is haunted, the first person you should call is someone with a direct line to the afterlife, such as Lin Shaye's Elise Rainier from the Insidious movies. The medium comes to the Lambert Family's aid after young, unwitting astral traveler Dalton (Ty Simpkins) flies too far into "The Further" — a spiritual realm she named herself.

Chris Washington (Get Out)

Jordan Peele made a point to have a protagonist capable of making intelligent decisions for his Oscar-winning directorial debut, Get Out. He achieved that goal beautifully with Daniel Kaluuya's Chris Washington, with his adept suspicions of unusual circumstances and ingenious plan to escape the Armitage Family’s clutches.

Grace (Ready Or Not) 

Samara Weaving's newlywed in Radio Silence's breakthrough hit, Ready or Not, proves to be an ideal Hide-and-Seek player when her in-laws forced her to play it to the death as part of a matrimonial ritual. While she does get spotted a few times, it is in those moments when Grace also proves to be quite the fighter.

Dutch (Predator) 

Even the biggest fans of the Predator movies seem to forget that, when it comes to defeating the cunning, titular extraterrestrial, being the toughest, strongest, and best marksman is nowhere near as important as being the smartest. Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character from the 1987 original) realizes this after becoming the last of his crew and taking him on with old-school hunting tactics.

Sienna Shaw (Terrifier 2) 

Played by Lauren LaVera, the hero of Damien Leone's sequel to his shockingly brutal, old-school slasher throwback, Terrifier, is not just a final girl by circumstance. As foretold in artwork crafted by her late father, it is Sienna Shaw's destiny to cross paths with and defeat the sadistic Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton).

Clarice Starling (The Silence Of The Lambs) 

Jodie Foster won her second Academy Award for her performance in Jonathan Demme's adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel, The Silence of the Lambs. Her role as Clarice Starling — an FBI trainee seeking help from a manipulative, cannibalistic psychiatrist (played by Anthony Hopkins) — is one of the most intelligent and inspirational heroes in cinematic history, regardless of whether or not you want to call the Best Picture Oscar winner "horror."

Casey Cooke (Split, Glass) 

In M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, it eventually becomes known that Casey Cooke's calm demeanor and resourcefulness when she and her friends are kidnapped by a DID patient (James McAvoy) are the result of years of abuse from her uncle. Her trauma also allows Anya Taylor-Joy's character to have a unique connection with her captors' core identity, Kevin Wendell Crumb, that helps bring him back to earth in the 2019 sequel, Glass.

Randy Meeks (Scream)

The only original Scream cast member as resourceful as Sidney (if not more) is Randy Meeks, whose obsession with horror movie tropes allows him to, successfully, figure out at least one of Ghostface's true identities. Even though Jamie Kennedy's movie buff does not survive 1997’s Scream 2, his prime suspect in that sequel also turns out to be halfway correct.

Chief Martin Brody (Jaws)

Roy Scheider's Brody is the one member of Jaws' heroic trio with the least amount of experience with sharks. Yet, he makes up for it with the courage and skill needed to rid the waters of that man-eating beast.

Erin Harson (You're Next) 

When masked assassins turn an already bitter family reunion into a bloody nightmare in You're Next, the first one to take charge (and take out these adversaries) is Sharni Vinson's Erin, who is dating one of the family members. It is later revealed that she was trained for situations like this when she was a child, having grown up on her father's survivalist compound.

Peter Washington (Dawn of the Dead)

In the midst of the apocalypse, there is no one better to have in your crew than a member of SWAT, like Peter Washington. Ken Foree's role in George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie movie classic, Dawn of the Dead, is not only a master at slaying zombies, but a devoted survivalist and clever strategist.

Mindy Meeks-Martin (Scream, Scream VI) 

Like uncle, like niece. You would not be able to tell that Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) never got to meet the slain Randy based on how remarkably similar she is to him, particularly in her wide range of horror movie knowledge that proves to be very beneficial for the Scream franchise's new generation of targets.

Dr. Sam Loomis (Halloween) 

In Halloween, Laurie Strode manages to defend herself against Michael Myers, but is unable to expect when, where, and how he might strike — unlike the killer's psychiatrist. Donald Pleasence's Dr. Loomis is not necessarily one step ahead of his former patient, but is not too many steps behind him either, and there might have been fewer casualties in Haddonfield if more people actually accepted his advisement.

Marty (The Cabin In The Woods) 

Fran Kranz's character in the 2012 horror-comedy movie favorite The Cabin in the Woods, Marty, is chosen to represent the "Fool" archetype by The Organization, but they largely misjudged him. He is the first among his vacationing friends to pick up on the strange circumstances surrounding them and call them out on poor decisions often made in less self-aware horror movies.

Maddie Young (Hush) 

In Mike Flanagan's Hush, when a masked killer (John Gallagher Jr.) discovers his target, Maddie Young (Kate Siegel), is deaf, he takes advantage of that fact to intimidate, manipulate, and trap her in her secluded home. What he does not expect is that, as an author, she possesses a sharp analytical mind that keeps her one step ahead of her adversary.

Naru (Prey) 

In Dan Trachtenberg's 2022 Predator prequel, Prey, Amber Midthunder's aspiring Comanche warrior, Naru, proves her worth as a hunter by besting the greatest hunter in the universe. Much like Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch from the original classic, she manages to take out the hulking extra-terrestrial with her wits.

The Janitor (Willy's Wonderland) 

Similarities between 2020's Willy’s Wonderland and the popular Five Nights at Freddy’s series are allegedly coincidental, but there are some audiences who believe that said recent underrated horror movie is a better cinematic counterpart than Blumhouse’s official feature adaptation. The reason is that Nicolas Cage's silent, unnamed drifter manages to absolutely lay waste to a rundown family entertainment center's evil-possessed animatronics with his bare hands, all while cleaning the place up to an immaculate degree and scoring big in pinball.

Tess Marshall (Barbarian) 

In 2022’s Barbarian, Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) wastes no time scoping out the strange man she finds staying in her vacation rental home (played by Bill Skarsgård) — asking for his ID, avoiding a drink he prepares for her, etc. — which is only the first sign of her wisdom. The most definitive sign is when she finds a creepy hidden room in the basement and, instead of taking a look inside, her first instinct is one big, "Nope."

Scarlett Marlowe (As Above, So Below) 

Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) proves her worth as a Final Girl hall-of-famer in one pivotal scene from the 2014 found footage favorite, As Above, So Below. She single-handedly runs all the way back through the, literally, devilish caverns she and her comrades have traveled through to find a mystical artifact that will save a man's life.

The Abbott Family (A Quiet Place) 

A post-apocalyptic world overrun with aliens that hunt by sound is the ingenious concept behind 2018’s A Quiet Place from director John Krasinski, who also stars alongside his real-life wife, Emily Blunt, as a family struggling to stay undetected. For the most, the Abbotts manage this pretty well with tricks like creating paths of sand for quieter walks, building a soundproof bunker for their newborn, and speaking exclusively in American Sign Language.

Lionel Cosgrove (Dead Alive) 

While initially known for his clumsiness, Lionel (Timothy Balme) proves to be a real hero in Peter Jackson's comedic classic, Dead Alive, by making mincemeat about out of a zombie horde with a makeshift lawnmower. What an ingenious idea!

Sang-hwa (Train To Busan)

It is no wonder Don Lee went on to star in Marvel's Eternals cast after playing Sang-hwa in Train to Busan. Fewer characters might have survived the onboard outbreak in the South Korean zombie movie favorite if not for his remarkable skills as a strategist and a bare-knuckle brawler.

Cecelia Kass (The Invisible Man) 

Writer and director Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man is an ingenious modernization of H.G. Wells’ novel for multiple reasons — including its narrative from the perspective of the victim, and a very bright and cautious one at that. Elisabeth Moss' Cecelia Kass is one of the few horror movie characters who leaves absolutely no stone unturned in a fierce battle of wits against her adversary — in this case, her manipulative former husband, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), whom she suspects has figured out a way to stalk her without being seen.

Blade (Blade) 

What makes Blade — originally played by Wesley Snipes in his own trilogy — the ultimate vampire hunter? He technically is one himself. The Marvel Comics hero is known as a Daywalker, having been born with vampire blood and similar abilities that allow him to think just like his prey.

Tommy Jarvis (Friday The 13th Movies) 

Few of Jason Voorhees' targets have been about to successfully outsmart the hockey-masked killer like Tommy Jarvis. In his debut appearance in 1984's Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, the young man (played then by Corey Feldman) shaves his head to appear like a young Jason, disorienting the killer and giving him a clear shot to defeat him.

Tired of watching horror movies and getting frustrated over the characters’ ill-advised decisions? You shouldn’t have that problem with these characters.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article gives away crucial moments from the A Quiet Place movies, so unless you are caught up, make like the Abbotts and be sure to carefully tiptoe through these plot details.

One of the best horror movies in recent memory (if not all time), A Quiet Place, is expanding its intriguing, post-apocalyptic universe even further with an upcoming 2024 movie called A Quiet Place: Day One, which serves as a prequel to the first two acclaimed hits. Therefore, it is joining a long line of great horror movie franchises that are not told in chronological order.

Luckily, so far, the films have made it relatively easy to follow along by opening each installment with title cards that indicate exactly how many day we are into the global invasion of vicious, sound-hunting extraterrestrials at that point. Using that information and what we already know about A Quiet Place: Day One — which is hitting theaters this summer — we have compiled a quick, convenient reference guide to help explain the A Quiet Place movies timeline below. Naturally, we shall start at the beginning.

Day 1 (Millbrook)

One of the many things that made the original A Quiet Place from 2018 one of the most unique alien invasion movies of its time is that it dropped us right in the middle of its post-apocalyptic setting, keeping its cataclysmic origins a mystery. That was until three years later with the release of A Quiet Place Part II, which begins with an intense cold open that shows us the origin of the invasion, as seen by the citizens of a small town in upstate New York called Millbrook.

After Lee Abbott (John Krasinski, who also returned to write and direct the sequel) sees the aftermath of a mysterious disaster in Shanghai on TV at the local general store, he meets his wife, Evelyn (Emily Blunt), non-hearing daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and son Beau at his older son, Marcus’ (Noah Jupe), little league baseball game. The event is interrupted by a meteor shower that brings the alien race — referred to by some as Death Angels — to Earth, leading to an attack that sends the entire town in a desperate frenzy. As the Abbotts desperately struggle to reunite with one another, Lee figures out that the creatures are attracted to sound.

Day 1 (New York City)

As the title suggests, A Quiet Place: Day One takes place around the same time as the cold open for A Quiet Place Part II. However, this upcoming horror movie is showing the origins of the invasion from a new group of survivors — including one played by Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o and another by Stranger Things Season 4 cast member Joseph Quinn — and takes the action out of upstate New York and right in the heart of New York City.

We also know from the first official trailer for A Quiet Place: Day One that Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou is reprising his role from the sequel as a character only identified as “Man on Island,” which suggests that the prequel may reveal his real name and show his journey to his sanctuary, which he describes was by boat with help from the National Guard. We will have to wait until director Michael Sarnoski’s thriller is released to find out over how many days the film takes place, unless the Day One subtitle is meant to indicate that the story chronicles the first 24 hours of the invasion.

Day 89

Much like its follow-up, the original A Quiet Place also begins with an intense, heartbreaking cold open, but one that takes place well into the apocalypse. Merely eighty-nine days have passed since the invasion began, but very little of the population and very little sign of civilization remains, as seen by the dreadfully quiet and desolate opening shots of what is left of Millwood. On the bright side, there is still a relatively plentiful amount of supplies at the general store for the Abbott Family to take, including a toy rocket ship that Beau (Cade Woodward) wishes for, but Lee, speaking in American Sign Language, denies due to the noise it creates.

Little does the family know that Regan has snuck the toy to her younger brother, until later during the family’s walk on a sandy path they have laid down to ensure a quiet trek home. The silence is broken by the sound of Beau’s rocket ship, which attracts the first Death Angel we see in the franchise. Lee races toward his son, hoping to reach him before the creature does, but is too late.

Days 472-474

Following the cold open, the rest of A Quiet Place is set roughly a year after Beau’s tragic death. We see a deeper glimpse into how the Abbotts have managed maintain some stability in their new lives — such as continuing to speak almost exclusively in sign language and home-schooling the children. Lee has also taken measures to ensure his family’s safety by setting up a surveillance system around their farmhouse, using morse code in hopes of communicating with other survivors, and compiling comprehensive notes about the creatures’ strengths and weaknesses.

A series of horrific circumstances takes place between Day 473 and 474 — including Evelyn going into labor with Baby Abbott, and Lee -- to ensure Marcus and Regan’s safety against a Death Angel -- sacrificing himself by letting out a loud scream that diverts the creature’s attention away from the children. Soon after, the surviving family members discover that a high-pitched frequency emitting from her cochlear implant can be used against the monsters’ extremely sensitive hearing. This comes in handy in the days that follow.

Days 474-477

Following the cold open, the main story of A Quiet Place Part II picks up very soon after the last film left off, as Evelyn, Regan, Marcus, and Baby Abbott (placed in a box equipped with an oxygen tank to keep him safe and quiet) leave their home in the midst of the destructive Death Angels attack. They come across an old friend named Emmett (2024 Academy Award nominee Cillian Murphy) , the last of his own family who lives in a steel, soundproof bunker where he allows the Abbotts to stay, albeit reluctantly. He admits he never reached out to them before after seeing how savage other survivors have become, which we see an example of during Emmett and Regan’s journey outside the bunker.

Setting that plot point in motion is Regan’s theory that a radio playing “Beyond the Sea” on repeat is a message from a place literally “beyond the sea,” convincing her to leave the bunker on her own and prompting Evelyn to ask Emmett to bring her back. Instead he joins her on this search for an island sanctuary that turns out to exist and is one of the few places free of Death Angels, due to their inability to swim. Unfortunately, at the end of A Quiet Place Part II, it is discovered that one creature has found its way onto the island via boat, which Regan is eventually able to defeat by transmitting the sound from her hearing aid across the island’s radio station signal.

That is the timeline of A Quiet Place so far. There is also another installment called A Quiet Place Part III that is expected to release in 2025. Can you keep quiet until then, or are you too excited already?