First of all, as a digression, I have seen many comments that the weakness of monsters is that they are afraid of the high-frequency sound waves of hearing aids. It is impossible for human scientists to discover such an obvious weakness for so long.
But in fact, this is not a bug. It should be said that the monster is afraid of the sound waves of the special frequency that the daughter's hearing aid happens to be in, rather than all high-frequency sound waves. For example, in the final scene of the movie, the monster just hates the high-frequency noise from the TV, but the high-frequency noise from the TV doesn't hurt it like the daughter's hearing aids. The screenwriter also reminded that the sound wave frequency of this hearing aid was obtained by accident. The father made a lot of hearing aids for his daughter, but in the opposite scene where the daughter and her father were alone, the daughter did not want to wear them. She said in sign language, "It never works." . It turned out that this hearing aid just worked, and the frequency of this hearing aid would resonate with the monster's sound.
So maybe scientists have guessed that they use sound waves to attack monsters, but ordinary high-frequency sound waves can only attract monsters, but cannot hurt them. It will not experiment with sound waves of different frequency bands to attack monsters. So finding the sound wave at the frequency that can restrain the monster was purely accidental, just because Dad wanted to make a hearing aid for his daughter.
I personally think the real problem with this play is that it didn't explain that her daughter is deaf at the beginning. In fact, I think the setting of the daughter being deaf is a very important element of dramatic tension in this story. In a world where any sound can cause death, a person who can't hear a sound at all is more dangerous than anyone else because she doesn't know if she's making a sound.
But the fact that the daughter is deaf is lacking in the beginning of the story, especially when everyone can't speak and can only use sign language, the audience does not realize that the daughter is deaf at all. So when Dad put his daughter on hearing aids, I had absolutely no idea what they were doing? What is that instrument for? I don't know how many smart viewers realize that my daughter is deaf early on, but I didn't realize it until the middle of the film anyway.
I think for a commercial film, the key information should still be explained to the audience as clearly and plainly as possible. And the fact that the daughter is deaf is a very dramatic design in the whole story. The sooner the audience should understand this, the more the audience will worry about the family. Rather than using a somewhat deliberate and dramatic incident such as mother's pregnancy to construct conflict (this is also where the film was complained by many viewers, including me, when I saw my mother's pregnancy, I really felt that the screenwriter was too deliberate), it is better to make good use of my daughter's deafness, After all, this is a natural disability, the plot is more natural, and it can arouse the sympathy of the audience, rather than feel that the family is dying.
For example, in the hook incident at the beginning of the movie, the death of the youngest brother, if it was designed to be a mistake caused by the daughter's inability to hear the sound, then it would be much more reasonable (a group of adults walks in front, and the youngest child walks last, another one. The screenwriter deliberately designed, not to mention that in such a dangerous world, in the real world, adults and children go out, and no one will leave the child alone at the back of the adult invisible). This design has three advantages: first, at the beginning of the film, the audience will know the fact that her daughter is deaf; second, the audience will quickly understand the situation of her daughter, how dangerous she is in this world, no matter how deaf she is. For her and her family; the third is to make her daughter's inner guilt more real, her brother's death was caused by her inability to hear (her brother died for playing with toys, I find it difficult for ordinary audiences to empathize, I just think this bear child is too capable of killing).
All the above is nonsense.
I think as a horror movie, A Quiet Place is still too crude in its use of sound. It stands to reason that the most important horror element of this film is the sound, and the sound has become something that makes everyone nervous. But the director's use of sound is simply to raise the decibel suddenly and startle the audience with a shocking sound effect. This is very low-level. This kind of scaring method is similar to that in a very quiet house, your friend hides behind you and suddenly yells, although it does startle you, but there is no feeling of fear at all. Among the predecessors of the same routine, "Hold Your Breath" and "Dead Silence" are much stronger than "A Quiet Place" in creating a terrifying effect, especially "Dead Silence". I felt horrified after watching it.
So specifically, as a horror element, how should sound be used in horror films?
First of all, let me tell you about my personal understanding of horror movies. Horror movies, in my opinion, are a strong tension between the known tension and the unknown fright. The sudden loud noise can indeed startle the audience, but the emotion is fright, not terror.
What is the real terror? For example, let's redesign the scene at the beginning of the film. In order to treat one of the children, the protagonist's family came to the supermarket to find medicine. At this time, the daughter, who could not hear the sound, accidentally set off the alarm in the supermarket. The whole family was terrified, but the alarm didn't go off. Dad looked at the siren and found that because the supermarket was left unattended for a long time, the siren was stuck by something (how to get the siren stuck, ask a professional, the screenwriter just provided story ideas). However, the family could not breathe a sigh of relief, because the thing stuck on the siren was shaky and was about to fall off the siren. At that time, the siren would make a piercing alarm sound. So Dad was frightened and lightly turned off the siren, but whenever Dad made a mistake, the siren would go off. The hearts of all the family members were in their throats, watching Dad turn off the siren and praying that the siren would not go off suddenly. At the last moment when the siren was about to go off, Dad turned it off, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, a loud bang rang out from behind them! It turned out that all of them were paying attention to the father's side, and the youngest brother was left unattended and knocked a toy on the shelf to the ground. The monster rushed over and killed the youngest brother in front of everyone.
Of course, this is just what I thought of temporarily, and it is also very old-fashioned, but the meaning is that in horror films, the use of horror elements must always be in a state of suspension, which makes the audience nervous, and The last shot should be both expected and unexpected by the audience.
In the film "A Quiet Place", if the sound is the most important horror element, then the screenwriter and director should design a lot of sounds that may be made at any time in the plot, but do not know (the audience and the characters in the film are both don't know) when the device will make a sound. In fact, a newborn baby is a particularly good tool for creating a scary atmosphere, you never know when a baby will fall asleep or cry.
A really good horror film director would make the trip to the basement with mom and baby as long as possible. Best of all, have to go through that cornfield (reasonable? There's always a reason!). The empty cornfield that obscures the view, and the close-up shot of Xiaojingbie's father, the big scene and the small scene are alternately edited, which arouses the tension of the audience. Then, the surrounding cornfield made a rustling sound, and Dad knew that the monster was around the cornfield. At this time, the baby groaned slightly and seemed to be waking up. The footage cuts between a close-up of the dad, a panoramic shot of the cornfield, and a subjective close-up of the dad looking at the baby. Babies cry at any moment, and the rustling around the cornfield grows louder. Just when the entrance to the basement was in front of you, the baby let out a sudden cry, and the monster suddenly rushed out from an angle that the audience did not expect (how to find this angle? Photography to find a way).
I think "A Quiet Place" abandoned the creation of a terrifying atmosphere in many places where it could create a terrifying atmosphere. The director chose a more labor-saving and lazy way, that is, relying on the sudden enhancement of sound effects to scare the audience. As a horror movie lover, I am somewhat dissatisfied with such a simple scary method.
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