Examined under a certain light, A Quiet Place seems like more gimmick than movie. It’s certainly an easy plot to explain: a family is pursued by monstrous creatures with hypersensitive hearing that attack anything that makes noise and have already wiped out most life on Earth. Like electric buzzers under theater seats, a film that’s all about the characters staying as silent as the can for as long as they can might be a cheap trick, in the hand of inept or manipulative filmmakers — one long jump scare stretched to feature length. But you have to consider: it’s actually scary, like scary for the audience in the real actual world, to sit in a dark movie theater in dead silence. It’s not a trick, it’s more like extending the movie-going experience to another of the five senses. You hear your own blood in your eardrums. Beyond plot and character and cinematography, it creates a real fear response in the viewer. Don’t watch this movie at home, on TV, with your dishwasher running and the lights on. A Quiet Place comes into its own in the cinema.