A Quiet Place’s Monsters & Ending Explained

Warning: Major SPOILERS for A Quiet Place ahead

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John Krasinski’s gripping horror film A Quiet Place portrays a family’s fight to survive in a world full of monsters that hunt by sound. Lee (Krasinski) and Evelyn (Emily Blunt) communicate with their children Marcus (Noah Jupe) and Regan (Millicent Simmonds) using sign language, walk around barefoot, and have carefully built their lives around silence. Meanwhile, Lee is doing everything he can to find out more about the creatures that hunt them – and the movie’s ending comes with a reveal that could save them all.

The family’s noise-free life is complicated by the fact that Evelyn is pregnant, and babies are notoriously bad at keeping quiet. In an effort to keep everyone safe through the birth and the child’s early years, the family has built an underground shelter with soundproofing and a coffin-like crib equipped with a gas canister and mask, so that the baby can breathe while in the sound-proof cot. Despite their well-laid plans, however, Evelyn goes into labour two weeks early, and the creatures attack the house at the worst possible time. Here’s a breakdown of what exactly these deadly enemies are, and how A Quiet Place ends.

Related: John Krasinski Interview

What Are A Quiet Place’s Monsters?

It’s implied, though never directly stated, that the monsters in A Quiet Place are aliens. Lee has a collection of newspaper clippings related to their origins, and among them is a story about a meteor landing in New Mexico. Other newspaper clippings refer to the creatures as “dark angels” or “angels of death,” which suggests that they fell from the sky to exact punishment on mankind. Krasinski has described their arrival as like “releasing wolves into a daycare center… we didn’t even have a chance with these things.” We know from the notes that Lee has assembled that there are at least three of the monsters in the area surrounding the house.

At first the monsters are only seen as a blur of limbs, but as the movie goes on we get a better look at them in all their horrid glory. They are pale-skinned, move extremely quickly and have elongated front legs. Their most striking feature, however, is the head, which opens up in sections to expose a giant ear. Their hearing is extremely sensitive at all times, allowing them to hear potential prey from great distances, and when they reach the source of the noise they open up their heads in order to maximize their hearing further, and hone in on their prey.

The creatures’ skin is extremely tough, making them virtually invulnerable to harm, but there is a way to kill them. When their ears are open and the plates of armored skin on their head are shifted apart, it creates a weak spot. The discovery of this weakness is pivotal to the movie’s ending.

A Quiet Place’s Ending Explained

The family in A Quiet Place had an advantage when the monsters invaded; since Regan is deaf, the whole family were already fluent in sign language. Lee has also spent a year trying to repair Regan’s hearing aid using a manual and whatever spare parts he can scavenge, but has had little success. However, while the hearing aid that he gives her towards the start of the movie doesn’t actually improve her hearing, it does prove to be life-saving.

Related: Fan Theory Posits A Quiet Place Is A Secret Cloverfield Movie

Whenever the creatures try to use their super-hearing around Regan, her hearing aid creates a feedback loop that causes both her and them immense pain. When a monster has the surviving family members (Lee sacrifices himself in order to give his children a chance to escape) cornered in the basement of the house, Regan holds the hearing aid up to the radio to amplify the signal, causing the creature to become disoriented and enraged. While it is weakened, Evelyn shoots it in its exposed head with a shotgun – finally managing to kill it.

The noise of the shotgun blast attracts the two other monsters towards the house, but this time Regan and Evelyn are prepared. Regan turns up the volume on the radio, while Evelyn cocks the shotgun, and that’s where the movie ends – in a dangerous place, but on an optimistic note. Of course, this does beg the question of why the government and military never thought of using sound devices to weaken the creatures with super-hearing, but we don’t see much of what’s going on in the outside world. Perhaps others have found the same solution, and humanity will eventually be able to take their planet back.

More: A Quiet Place Review

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Hannah Shaw-Williams
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Hannah has been with Screen Rant since 2013, covering news, features, movie premieres, Comic-Con and more! You can follow her on Twitter @HSW3K

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