JP Nunez
What’s the best horror sequel of all time? Is it Evil Dead 2? Aliens? Bride of Frankenstein? Those are all great picks, but I’d like to throw another title into the conversation: A Quiet Place Part II. The jury is still out on whether it’s the best genre sequel of all time, but at the very least, it deserves consideration. As I said a few weeks ago in my deep dive into A Quiet Place, Part II isn’t just a narrative sequel to the original film. It’s also a thematic sequel, and that sets it apart from the majority of its cinematic peers.
See, A Quiet Place is all about parenthood and parents’ responsibility to protect their children, and in A Quiet Place Part II, the kids finally start to grow up. They take the reins from their parents and become protectors in their own right, and if you’re a fan of that first movie, seeing these characters mature right in front of your eyes is an absolute joy. It’s the perfect complement to the 2018 original that kicked off this amazing franchise, so let’s take a deep dive into A Quiet Place Part II and see how it develops the themes John Krasinski introduced in A Quiet Place.
The Plot of A Quiet Place Part II
Let’s start by briefly going over the plot of A Quiet Place Part II. After a short intro taking us back to the beginning of the alien invasion (a concept explored more fully in the recent spinoff, A Quiet Place: Day One), this story begins in earnest when we return to the final scene of the first A Quiet Place. Evelyn Abbott has just shot and killed the monster that followed her and the kids into their basement, and she leads the family out to look for other survivors.
They eventually find someone, an old family friend named Emmett, but he’s hesitant to take them in. He says he can’t help them, and even though he eventually agrees to let them stay the night, he wants the Abbotts to leave in the morning. However, that all changes when Evelyn’s daughter, Regan, goes off in the night to search for a community she believes lives on a nearby island.
Her mother pleads with Emmett to find her and bring her back, and he agrees. However, he only fulfills part of his promise. When he finally catches up with the kid, Regan convinces him to help her look for the island community, and when they find it, it seems like a utopia. The monsters can’t swim, so everybody on the island is safe.
But as you might be able to guess, it doesn’t stay that way for long. Emmett soon sees a boat float to shore, and it’s carrying one of the aliens. The thing immediately starts to terrorize the community, so Emmett and Regan have to hurry to a local radio station to broadcast the feedback from Regan’s hearing aid. They eventually succeed, and after the feedback weakens the creature, they manage to kill it.
At the same time, Evelyn, her son Marcus, and her newborn baby are in dire straits back at Emmett’s hideout. One of the monsters has found them, and it looks like it’s only a matter of time before the thing manages to reach them. But just when all hope seems lost, they hear Regan’s feedback on the radio, and they use it to hurt the alien trying to harm them. Then, as it’s writhing in pain, they shoot it and kill it.
A Trap and a Scream
Now that we know the plot of A Quiet Place Part II, let’s dive right into its thematic goodness. For about the first half hour or so of its runtime, the film mostly sticks to the same themes we saw in the first movie. For example, during the initial invasion, Evelyn and her husband, Lee, do everything they can to protect their kids, and when the family sets out to find more survivors, Evelyn is clearly the leader of the pack.
But the most striking example of this theme comes when the Abbotts find their way to a fenced-off area they later learn is the beginning of Emmett’s territory. Understandably, the guy has lined the place with a number of precautions against intruders, and unfortunately, Marcus steps right into one of them.
His leg gets caught in a bear trap, and unsurprisingly, he screams bloody murder. His mother has to free him from the contraption, but that’s just the beginning of their problems. One of the aliens finds them immediately afterward, and it tries to claim them as its next victims. However, Regan is able to weaken it with the feedback from her hearing aid, and Evelyn blasts its brains out with her shotgun.
Now, if you remember A Quiet Place, this scene should cause a slight feeling of déjà vu. It’s reminiscent of the moment in that first movie when Evelyn steps on a nail, but unlike her son, she doesn’t scream. She manages to hold it in for her sake and the sake of her unborn child, so for the time being, she doesn’t need anyone to keep her safe.
But Marcus isn’t nearly that strong. He simply can’t stop himself from yelling in agony, and he needs his mother to save him from the monster his howls attract. The entire situation is a clear indication that this kid isn’t ready to take the baton from his mother and look after himself (let alone anyone else!) yet, so at this point in A Quiet Place Part II, we’re still in the same thematic place we were when the original film ended.
“Dad Would”
However, a few scenes later, we finally start to make some progress. The Abbotts learn that one of the local radio stations has been playing the song “Beyond the Sea” over and over again for a few months, and Regan begins to get her hopes up. She thinks there might be other survivors, but Emmett dismisses her idea. He says there’s nobody left worth saving and they should all just ignore the song.
But Regan won’t give up. At one point in A Quiet Place Part II, she pulls her brother aside and tells him she wants to look for the source of that radio signal. She thinks she can help the people broadcasting the song, and when Marcus asks why she wants to risk her life like that, she replies, “Because Dad would.”
With those words, Regan signals that she’s ready to step up and help fill the void left by her father’s death. The man was a paragon of virtue and sacrifice in her mind, and she wants to be just like him. He died protecting the people he loved, and she’s ready to take a similar risk to help those in need.
In contrast, Marcus is stuck in a selfish, childish mentality. When Regan tells him that she wants to be like her father, he responds, “And look what happened to him.” Where the girl sees an example to follow, this boy just sees a cautionary tale. Unlike his sister, he’s not ready to put his life on the line to help others, so even though Regan is finally maturing into the person their parents raised her to be, Marcus still has a long way to go.
Regan’s Journey
Despite being discouraged by her brother, Regan sets out to find the source of the mysterious radio signal on her own, and when Evelyn realizes what her daughter has done, she begs Emmett to find the girl and bring her back. As I said, he eventually does, but Regan has a dangerous encounter with one of the monsters before he catches up to her.
It happens on an abandoned train, and the girl tries to fight it off, but to no avail. Even though she weakens it with her hearing aid, the thing doesn’t back away, and when she shoots it, her aim isn’t good enough to kill it. It looks like this is the end of the line for her, but right at the last minute, Emmett finds them and shoots the monster in the head.
It’s one of the most tense scenes in A Quiet Place Part II, and it shows that despite Regan’s willingness to step up to the plate, she’s not ready to fill her mother’s shoes just yet. Evelyn has shown multiple times that she can kill these aliens with just one shot, but when Regan gets a chance to do the same, she fails. She still needs a father figure to protect her, so she still has some room to grow and mature.
Then, at the very end of A Quiet Place Part II, she finally comes into her own. It happens when she and Emmett are at the radio station, and they’re being stalked by one of the monsters. She manages to weaken the creature by broadcasting the feedback from her hearing aid over the air, and this time, she finishes the job. With Emmett sitting helplessly on the floor, Regan slowly walks towards the alien, and she kills it with a metal pole.
If you’ve seen A Quiet Place Part II, you know this is a great moment. For the first time in the franchise, Regan doesn’t need anyone to help her or save her. She destroys the creature all by herself, and in doing so, she saves Emmett. He almost certainly would’ve died without her, so this scene is a wonderful role reversal that signals Regan’s passage into maturity.
Marcus’s Time to Shine
Once Regan sets off on her own, Marcus’s half of the story isn’t nearly as meaty as his sister’s, but that’s okay. We already know he’s not ready to step into his parents’ shoes, so this part of A Quiet Place Part II doesn’t need to focus on him nearly as much. Nevertheless, just like his sister, Marcus still gets his time to shine at the very end.
The kid has been listening to the radio this whole time, and once Regan broadcasts the feedback from her hearing aid, her brother uses it to weaken the monster attacking Emmett’s hideout. It’s a great scene, and it mirrors Regan’s moment in the limelight almost perfectly. Much like Emmett, Evelyn is sitting down, helpless to defend her sons against the creature, so it’s up to Marcus to save them.
And he does. As the alien is writhing in pain, the boy finally works up the courage to protect the people he loves, and if his father could see it, the man would be awfully proud. Marcus slowly walks towards the monster, picks up a gun, and shoots it. Just like his sister, he too has finally matured. He’s taken his parents’ example to heart and become the person they raised him to be.
A Thematic Sequel
As you watch these events unfold, the camera switches back and forth between Regan and Marcus, and their killing blows happen at the exact same time. It’s a cool editing technique that creates an unmissable parallel between the children’s moments of bravery, and this entire scene is the climax of A Quiet Place Part II.
It’s the last thing we see before the credits begin to roll, so it leaves us feeling like there’s still more story to tell. And there is. The characters may be safe for the moment, but the family still has to reunite, and that will entail at least one more treacherous journey. But surprisingly, we don’t get to see it. Instead, the movie ends with the kids’ thematic high points, and that’s not an accident.
It tells us that seeing Regan get back to her mother and brothers isn’t the point of A Quiet Place Part II. Rather, its purpose is to wrap up the thematic arc that began with the first A Quiet Place, and that happens when Marcus and Regan finally become like their parents.
Once we get there, the movie doesn’t need to continue. It can leave Regan’s journey home for the next installment. A Quiet Place Part II isn’t just a narrative sequel to A Quiet Place, it’s also a thematic sequel. When you put these two films together, you get a beautiful meditation on what it truly means to raise a family. Yes, parents have to protect their children, but as we saw at the end of A Quiet Place, they won’t be around forever. They also have to teach their kids to take their place when they’re gone, and these two movies illustrate that dynamic almost perfectly.
