Do you hear that? That's the sound of another B-grade horror film being quietly offloaded to Netflix, seemingly as part of the company's ongoing aim to provide a cure for insomnia sufferers.
In fact, to call the story of The Silence half-baked would be an insult to half-decent bakers everywhere. Not only is the film an inert pastiche of countless post-apocalyptic dramas, most notably last year's A Quiet Place, but even Netflix's own Bird Box feels like a master class in tension building and nuanced storytelling in comparison. Perhaps the biggest similarity the film shares with Bird Box is the desire to close your eyes, but for two very different reasons.
As part of the film's commitment to unoriginality, The Silence follows a group of killer bat-like creatures that have escaped from the bowels of hell (or a vast underground cave system, take your pick) to reap havoc above Earth. Hunting only by sound (despite the fact that the bats don't shut the hell up), within hours America has been reduced into a post-apocalyptic landscape, with the army and military conspicuously absent from every scene.
Amongst the carnage, a family, led by Stanley Tucci who plays a father to a deaf daughter (played by Kiernan Shipka), must do want they can to survive, which mostly means moving around a lot and never thinking of bordering up the doors or windows of their house. In one scene, the daughter literally leaves the door wide open as she enters a store looking for supplies. Oh and there's a crazed cult randomly inserted into the film's climactic moments in case the story wasn't rushed enough already.
It's a bargain bin version of Hitchcock's The Birds, if the bargain bin were made from reused materials sourced from a smouldering car wreck. However, if you're still keen on watching The Silence, prepare yourself for a challenging mystery as trying to figure out what attracted Stanley Tucci to this mess in the first place is a real head scratcher.
In fact, to call the story of The Silence half-baked would be an insult to half-decent bakers everywhere. Not only is the film an inert pastiche of countless post-apocalyptic dramas, most notably last year's A Quiet Place, but even Netflix's own Bird Box feels like a master class in tension building and nuanced storytelling in comparison. Perhaps the biggest similarity the film shares with Bird Box is the desire to close your eyes, but for two very different reasons.
As part of the film's commitment to unoriginality, The Silence follows a group of killer bat-like creatures that have escaped from the bowels of hell (or a vast underground cave system, take your pick) to reap havoc above Earth. Hunting only by sound (despite the fact that the bats don't shut the hell up), within hours America has been reduced into a post-apocalyptic landscape, with the army and military conspicuously absent from every scene.
Amongst the carnage, a family, led by Stanley Tucci who plays a father to a deaf daughter (played by Kiernan Shipka), must do want they can to survive, which mostly means moving around a lot and never thinking of bordering up the doors or windows of their house. In one scene, the daughter literally leaves the door wide open as she enters a store looking for supplies. Oh and there's a crazed cult randomly inserted into the film's climactic moments in case the story wasn't rushed enough already.
It's a bargain bin version of Hitchcock's The Birds, if the bargain bin were made from reused materials sourced from a smouldering car wreck. However, if you're still keen on watching The Silence, prepare yourself for a challenging mystery as trying to figure out what attracted Stanley Tucci to this mess in the first place is a real head scratcher.