1

In the Quiet Place movie, monster creatures roam the Earth searching for biological life that makes a sound. They seem to be able to pick up the least insignificant noise from a huge distance (such as a gas lamp toppling over inside a house), however they have a hard time spotting a person within the same room if they stay quiet enough.

Was there any explanation for this within the movie?

Improve this question
8

There is a whiteboard shown at an early point in the film which provides convenient exposition.

enter image description here

The monsters are blind.

Improve this answer
7

It's not explicitly mentioned in the film, but I think their ability to hear over such great distance actually is the reason they have trouble finding a relatively quiet person right in from of them. There's the argument that people make noises all the time--breathing, heart beats, etc--but it surely would be difficult to pick out those sounds when you're also hearing the wind through the corn field outside or the squeaking of a floorboard next door. At a certain point, acuity crossed over into hypersensitivity.

Improve this answer
7
  • 3
    I agree, and I believe the film provides evidence to support this. Whenever the creatures are trying to locate something close up, we see them undergo a physical change. It does appear that listening for something near requires greater effort than hearing something far away.
    – Allen R. Brady
    Apr 21 '18 at 0:27
  • It's the same reason as why the waterfall is safe. The creatures are sensitive to sounds in excess of the ambient noise level. Yes people breathe and their hearts beat, but in most places these sounds would be below the ambient background noise.
    – aroth
    Apr 21 '18 at 2:51
  • Still doesn't explain why they can hear a gas lamp topple over but can't hear people walking from a distance. This movie is wholly inconsistent.
    – Charleh
    Aug 20 '20 at 12:04
  • @Charleh The people in the movie take great pains to walk silently
    – forresthopkinsa
    Jun 2 at 6:40
  • 1
    Given that normal conversation is about 65dBA - sound drops off 6dBA for the first meter, and then for every doubling of distance drops off another 6dBA. The ambient background noise level of a forest is anything from 15-20dBA for a very light 1m breeze, so if you do the math: at 128m, 65dBA has dropped to 23dBA - that's barely above the background noise of the forest. No matter how good the creatures can hear, if they are over 100m-150m away they can't hear you talk in the open let alone inside the walls of a cabin/house because there's no differentiating the sound from background noise.
    – Charleh
    Jun 2 at 9:31

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .