"When the world is under attack from creatures who hunt their human prey by sound, a teenager who lost her hearing at 13, and her family, seek safety in a remote refuge. However, they discover a cult who are eager to exploit her heightened senses."
Well, this is exactly what every other review has said it was. The Silence is pretty much copied its homework from A Quiet Place but made sure to change a few things so it wouldn't obviously be plagiarism. However, inserting pieces from Bird Box, The Walking Dead, and even Alfred Hitchcock's' The Birds, doesn't really make this an interesting or unique film.
The film stars Stanley Tucci and discount-Emma Watson (Kiernan Shipka) and while they are quite accomplished actors, their performances really fall flat. Mainly due to poorly written dialogue and some inadequate direction, The family of protagonists in the film are uninteresting, inauthentic, and lack any form of chemistry between them. For a horror film, this is really the crux of whether the audience will engage with it, and to have a set of characters that don't feel genuine, it means you don't care what happens to them.
The Silence lacks any form of consistent direction in its story, but on a positive note, it did try its best to take the film on a different route in the third act. Tension and suspense were sparse prior to the final act, but the twist does amp that up significantly. Too little too late though, and this is another aspect that isn't developed enough to make me care. I would have actually preferred if 90% of the film had included more of this human-based drama, as it is much more believable than the CGI beasts we were provided with.
That is one of the reasons why the tension and suspense were subpar in this film; it explains everything straight away. The opening scene introduces the monster, and news reports and social media posts explain every single piece of information you need to know; whether it be areas affected, weaknesses, strengths, or safe zones, the exposition is doled out in spades, removing any sense of mystery, and taking away the opportunity for our protagonists to actually figure anything out for themselves.
Visually, the film is also uninspired, with a dreary colour palette and some overused CGI that looks rubbery and doesn't always sync up properly. A Quiet Place held intrigue and tension for so long by not revealing their monsters until well into the film, but The Silence decides its best to show them right from the start, and insert them into pretty much every single scene at every opportunity. It just didn't work.
The Silence borrows concepts from many films but fails to incorporate them in a cohesive manner. Even reading the synopsis of the movie, you can't help but feel that they have lazily focused on certain aspects of the characters to get around their poor performances. I did not believe that Shipka's character was anywhere on the spectrum of being deaf. I did not believe that this group of actors were a family. I don't believe The Silence is worth wasting your time on. Just watch the other films that it ripped off, and see how competent films are put together.