Is A Quiet Place: Day One Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot

Marionettes, then meteors

Sam is a terminally ill cancer patient at a hospice outside New York City, and she lives there with a cat named Frodo. Her nurse, Reuben, talks her into coming along on a trip to a Manhattan marionette show with other patients. While they are in the city, objects like meteors fall from the sky and creatures attack the crowd. This is the scene to brace for, and it is the first one. A creature hits an ambulance, which explodes, and the blast knocks Sam out. When she wakes up she is inside the theater with Frodo, Reuben and other survivors, and Henri signals her to be quiet. Military helicopters announce that everyone should stay silent and hidden until rescue arrives. Sam watches fighter jets bomb the bridges off Manhattan to keep the creatures on the island. When one survivor panics, Henri tries to keep him quiet and accidentally kills him.

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A generator with no sense of timing

That night the power grid goes down and the theater's emergency generator starts up with a roar. Reuben shuts it off, and a creature attacks and kills him. Sam grabs Frodo and heads for Harlem. The military announces that boats will take civilians out from South Street Seaport, since the creatures can't swim, and crowds start moving that way. The noise draws the creatures, and in the stampede Sam loses Frodo. Eric, an English law student, climbs out of a flooded subway station, finds Frodo, and follows him back to Sam. She tells him to go south to the boats, but he is in shock and follows her home instead, where he learns she used to write poetry. The next morning she leaves without him, and he catches up. Sam accidentally alerts the creatures, and the pair escape into a flooded subway, wade through deep water, wake a creature, and get away to a ruined church.

Pizza as a survival goal

While Sam rests in the church, Eric goes out to a pharmacy for her medication. He goes after Frodo at a construction site and finds a pack of creatures and one larger leader eating what is left of an egg-like pod. Sam tells him that as a child she used to go see her father, now dead, play jazz at a Harlem club, and that afterward they would get pizza at Patsy's. She wants to do both again before she dies. Eric takes her to the club, finds that Patsy's has been destroyed, and brings back pizza from another shop. This stretch is mostly Eric and Sam keeping a promise about pizza.

Car alarms for a good cause

A boat full of survivors is leaving Manhattan by river, and Eric and Sam spot it. As they head for it, creatures begin to collect by the water. Sam hands Eric her sweater and Frodo, then runs off to set off car alarms and pull the creatures away. The creatures nearly catch Eric and Frodo after Eric accidentally kicks a soda can, but the two jump into the water and swim to the boat, which Henri has also reached. In the jacket Eric later finds a note from Sam, asking him to look after Frodo and thanking him for reminding her what living is. In the last scene, Sam walks down a deserted street listening to music on her headphones. She accepts what is coming, smiles, and unplugs the headphones so the music plays out loud. A creature appears behind her.