The trouble is that nothing that happens on Day 1 is any different from anything that happened on Day 472, which is when we first entered. A Quiet Place universe. The creatures arrived, on meteors, seemingly fully prepared to kill and maim at the slightest hint of a sound. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take New Yorkers – their city is presumably No. 1 on the target list – long to realize that staying absolutely quiet is the only way not to be killed.

People come and go, for no reason at all, as Samira stumbles her way through a fast collapsing world. Her excuse for her brittle, cryptic callousness is that she is dying of cancer, housed in a hospice. Wolff plays a nurse at this hospice, who finds himself quickly disposed of, Hounsou (who was also in A Quiet Place Part 2) is around but barely, then two children appear and you hope that the film might have something different for Samira to do. , but it doesn’t.

Finally Samira encounters Eric (Quinn), who emerges literally from under water – it has been determined that the alien creatures can’t swim – and is found by Frodo and brought to her. He is a frightened Englishman, a long way from home, a detail that doesn’t really matter to the story. What matters is that, again, it is the woman who takes the lead, as Eric follows.

Along the way, Samira and Eric strike up a relationship that only two people staring death in the face can – helped along by the cat that, while it is quiet itself, has a habit of straying into almost the mouths of monsters at every turn.

There are some warm-ish scenes, but also clearly manipulative as Samira turns out to be a published poet, with a ready poem suited for the occasion at hand. To boot, her father was a pianist who played at a club in Harlem, and of course the film will get there – and of course after a detour to a church, where a beam of sunlight streams in through a hole the shape of Africa.

Nyong’o is predictably brilliant. If terror screaming out of her large eyes sets the tone at the start, it is Samira’s resilience that shines through later, then her determination to not let despondence get the better of her, and finally the creeping exhaustion at the constant struggle to live. Quinn gives her able company but can only try to keep up in the face of that performance.

Unlike the other two A Quiet Place films, this film is not directed by John Krasinski but only co-written by him. Director Sarnoski, who showed some promise with his only previous feature Pig, has inherited a successful template and makes little effort to put his own imprint on it.

There are plenty of chances to do so, particularly those provided by rain, thunder and lightning, and the sounds they drown. A fountain under which hide two scared children is another little touch that could have gone far. Even how does a city that never sleeps lull itself into slumber is itself a film worth exploring. However, A Quiet Place: Day One breaks its one cardinal rule: it can never settle down.

A Quiet Place Day One movie director: Michael Sarnoski
A Quiet Place Day One movie rating: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou
A Quiet Place Day One movie rating: 2 stars