SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
If they hear you, they hunt you. A family must live in silence to avoid mysterious creatures that hunt by sound. Knowing that even the slightest whisper or footstep can bring death, Evelyn and Lee are determined to find a way to protect their children while desperately searching for a way to fight back.
SPOILERS AHEAD
A Quiet Place Plot Summary and Synopsis
Most of Earth’s human population has been annihilated by blind creatures with hypersensitive hearing that attack anything that makes noise. They are covered in armor which protects them from bullets and explosives.
The Abbott family – wife Evelyn, husband Lee, deaf daughter Regan, and sons Marcus and Beau – silently scavenge for supplies in a deserted town. Going barefoot while out in the open, the family communicates in American Sign Language. Four-year-old Beau is drawn to a battery-powered space shuttle toy, but Lee takes it away due to the noise it would make. Regan returns the toy to Beau, who also takes the batteries that his father removed from it. Beau activates the toy when the family is walking home while crossing a bridge, giving away his location to a nearby creature that kills him before Lee can save him.
Over a year later, Regan struggles with guilt over her brother’s death, Evelyn enters the final stages of pregnancy, and Lee fruitlessly tries to make radio contact with the outside world. Lee attempts to upgrade Regan’s cochlear implant with scavenged miniature amplifiers to restore her hearing, but the devices are ineffective. Later, Lee takes Marcus to a nearby river with a large waterfall to teach him how to fish, while Regan abandons her mother to visit Beau’s memorial. Lee explains to Marcus that they are safe from the creatures in the presence of louder and constant sounds, as the sounds mask over their voices and do not attract creatures. Marcus says that Regan blames herself for Beau’s death and needs her father to tell her he still loves her.
Alone at the house, Evelyn goes into labor. While making her way to their basement, she accidentally steps on an exposed nail with her right foot and drops a glass picture frame that alerts a nearby creature. Evelyn flips a switch that changes the exterior house lights to red as a signal to the others and struggles to remain silent during her contractions. Arriving at the farm and seeing the lights, Lee instructs Marcus to set off fireworks as a diversion. Lee finds Evelyn hiding in the bathroom with their newborn son and, along with Evelyn, makes his way to their improvised soundproofed basement. Lee leaves to find the other children, promising Evelyn he will protect them. Evelyn then falls asleep but soon wakes to discover that the barn basement is flooded with water from a broken pipe and that a creature is inside with her.
Regan takes refuge atop a grain silo with Marcus, lighting a fire to alert their father of their whereabouts. However, they run out of lighter fluid and the fire dies before they can attract Lee’s attention. A hatch door then suddenly gives way, and Marcus falls into the silo. The sound of the door falling distracts the creature that was stalking Evelyn and it targets Marcus and Regan. Regan, who has jumped in after Marcus, sinks into the corn and nearly suffocates, but Marcus saves her. Regan’s cochlear implant reacts to the proximity of the creature by emitting a high-frequency sound that drives it away. The children escape from the silo and reunite with their father.
The creature returns, attacking and wounding Lee, while Marcus and Regan hide in a pickup truck. After seeing his father wounded, Marcus shouts impulsively, attracting the creature to the truck. Lee signs to Regan that he loves her and always has, before yelling to draw the creature away from his children; the creature, hearing Lee’s voice, attacks and kills him. Regan and Marcus roll the truck down a hill to escape and reunite with Evelyn and the baby at the farmhouse. The four retreat to the house’s basement. When the creature returns, Regan, who realizes that the sound made by the implant distresses the creature, switches the device back on and places it on a nearby microphone, amplifying the feedback. Painfully disoriented, the creature exposes the flesh beneath its armored head, allowing Evelyn to fatally shoot it with a shotgun.
A Quiet Place Ending
The family views a CCTV monitor, showing two creatures attracted by the noise of the shotgun blast approaching the house. With their newly acquired knowledge of the creatures’ weakness, the members of the family arm themselves and prepare to fight back.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).