Stanley Tucci is a national treasure and Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) is a good actress. They alone prop up The Silence despite the shameless cribbing of A Quiet Place. Where Bird Box subbed in sight for sound, the latest riff on the apocalypse is a copy of John Krasinski’s 2018 smash hit, right down to the female lead and daughter of family patriarch being mostly deaf. Based on a 2015 page-turner, it’s no excuse no matter who came first. Director John Leonetti and co. knew there would be comparisons yet did nothing to assuage them apparently. Tucci, Shipka, Miranda Otto, and others make up the upper-middle class family who are forced from their homes when overgrown, mutated bats, or “vesps” as they call them, begin infesting the world at large. They’re blind, sensitive to noise, and look like mini-winged demons from hell. Or Appalachia, same thing. This would-be thriller is clearly the child of Netflix algorithms, so truncated and beholden to strict plotting that the movie ends before it even begins, crapping out at a brisk ninety minutes. Surely a gift, it’s also damaging to a film that lives or dies on the strength of its characters, many of whom are barely sketched. Tucci and Shipka are so endearing they imbue their stock characters with everything we already love about them. Their presence, a jolly ol’ John Corben, and a good kill or two make The Silence tolerable in the midst of thin plotting and not much to call “thrilling.”

Grade: C