A Quiet Place Part II dropped a new teaser on Super Bowl weekend, which is more high-strung drama and stress. We got a reference to “Dad” in the first trailer, and the new TV spot actually shows John Krasinski returning, for at least the part of the movie that is set on the first day of invasion. We don’t really get too much else in the Super Bowl spot, just a reiteration that the sequel will be as much about “hell is other people” as it is monster attacks. Although the monster attacks do look cool. I am generally on the side of “don’t show the shark” when it comes to monster movies, but the way these monsters use echolocation to get around is a neat gimmick. Krasinski handled the monsters really well in A Quiet Place, but he has more money to work with this time, which means more chances to show off the monsters. I just hope he doesn’t overplay his hand and run the gimmick into the ground.
There was also a ninety-second featurette released over the weekend, and in it Krasinski talks about going back to show the invasion to answer “fan questions” about what happened. This is exactly the thing I do not like about sequelizing movies that were never intended to have sequels. A Quiet Place is a great, tight horror movie, and part of its strength is the combination of spare plotting and dense worldbuilding. It establishes that something happened without getting bogged down in details you don’t really need—the story is very focused on the Abbott family and their immediate plight. But now we’re going to hash it all out for the sequel. This is a definite case of “want vs. need”, and I am a little disappointed in Krasinski for erring on the side of “want”. I’m sure he’ll pull together a cool action sequence—John Krasinski is more interesting as a director than he is as an actor: discuss—but I also don’t think we need to know anything about the actual invasion day. The wreckage left behind tells a story, playing it out is redundant. But we gotta give the fans what they want because pandering to fans has never backfired on anyone ever. I’m not saying A Quiet Place Part II will be a mess—it probably won’t be—but, in general, it’s never good to pander to fans.
