The Quiet Hour (2014) Reviews

• Dull, Trite and Plot less

  rickcadger-676352015-11-02

  Visually, this low budget drama is nicely done with atmospheric location and lighting. The performances aren't bad. The main problem is that the actors really had very little to work with, and I feel for them. There is no real plot beyond a very shallow rehash of the besieged-by-nutters theme. The SF/alien aspect is completely superfluous and is in no way required by the travesty that masquerades as a storyline. The dialogue is dreadful, with thin chunks of cliché exposition and old-hat speculations about aliens who the budget will not allow us to see. As is so often the case, the first reviews of this movie are implausibly glowing... and similar. Draw your own conclusions.

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• Moody piece on the psychology of survival

  peppersghost2016-04-14

  As often, reviews and ratings on IMDb are completely wrong, as I found The Quiet Hour vastly underrated. In gloom and at slow pace, accompanied by a very rich and touching score by Carlos José Alvarez, following Sarah and Tom through the hardships of survival is an intimate journey. By avoiding an excess of action-driven plot points, as you would expect from your average alien invasion film, this one comes across far more evocative and tense. It reminded me a bit of Testament by Lynne Littman, but The Quiet Hour is the better cinematic experience of the two, and I guess somewhat more positive. (Not that any of them could really be called cheerful to the slightest.)

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• Not even B class movie

  lamtara-937632016-10-27

  OK, a blind guy that looks at everything, A smoking chimney when no one stokes a fire, a fish that burns as there is no oil ???? hello, fish are full of oil and what was wrong with steaming it ?, food in short supply yet carrots and spud were peeled instead of being scrubbed, lock all the downstairs windows and leave the upstairs ones open,, no one heard the vehicle drive up outside, search for an intruder with a gun pointing at the floor, a cut on Sarahs face that got worse and then better and then worse again.....who the hell did the continuation ?? lousy computer graphics where alien craft go behind the mother ship, wooden actors, terrible story line and a director that needs to go back to school to learn his profession....Simply awful. I had to watch it all just to see how bad it really was

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• Robust yet thoughtful sci-fi thriller which truly delivers

  chuckcorrado2014-07-12

  So often one sees hopeless work coming from a low budget — where the financial limitations of a production are translated into visible cracks in the films structure and production values. The same cannot be said of The Quiet Hour which imaginatively and creatively uses its financial limitations to its advantage and also deftly manages to work the things that count, such as decent camera equipment, locations, acting, CGI and narrative framework. The film focuses on the story of Sarah, a nineteen year old ex-veterinary student who has to defend her farm, blind younger brother and livestock not so much from the unseen alien predators that have arrived to pillage the earth of its natural resources as from a gang of bad guys who want to take over her farm. The action largely takes place in the house and surrounding grounds where director Stéphanie Joalland (in her feature debut) strikes a fine balance between building dramatic tension and fleshing out the characters. Given that this is primarily a slice of genre cinema it is refreshing that so much effort has gone into character development and performance. Also the backdrop of the alien apocalypse has been carefully considered, rendering the picture refreshingly devoid of plot holes. Highly recommended.

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• Utterly, utterly dull.

  paul-catanach2016-10-27

  I really should learn to check reviews before watching these things. I could have gone out to the shed, got some paint, daubed it on a wall and sat down to watch that dry instead. Described as "sci-fi" there was very little to merit that description apart from a few brief CGI shots of alien spaceships hanging from the clouds like haemorroids. At least that was all I saw of the sci-fi element in this film before I realised that its lack of pace was casting an air of gloom over me and switched off. The plot is slow. I mean, glacial. It's also, how can I put this.........dull. I tried really hard but gave up after 35 minutes.

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