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The concept of Tremors (1990), where a monster will get you if it feels your vibrations, surely inspired this film, where a monster will get you if you make a noise. The big difference between the two films is that Tremors had heart and soul and offered the viewers a train load of fun with its scares. A Quiet Place is void of any sense of joy or fun, and is strictly for the generation raised on Ritalin, Mope Rock, and are obsessed with all things dystopian. It's a doom and gloomer's delight. Considering that this film takes itself so seriously only makes it ridiculous and absurd beyond words. I'm always happy to see any horror or thriller become successful, but I just can't rejoice anymore when this dystopian obsessed and detached generation are dictating which films become successful. That fact is way more scarier than any horror these types of films offer.

Any true horror movie buff will be reminded of four films while watching The Ritual. Those four are, The Blair Witch Project, Pumpkinhead, The Wicker Man and King Kong. Personally, I would rather watch any of those four for the umpteenth time rather than sit through The Ritual for a second viewing. Those four films were innovative and had heart and soul as well as characters that you actually cared about, and they left the viewer satisfied. Like my heading states, The Ritual borrowed some heavy ingredients, but only half baked the idea. My biggest gripe is the zero chemistry between the 4 one-note characters that are supposed to be friends. They are not believable as friends for one second and the viewer suffers while watching four actors give ridiculous one-note performances. We have "the angry one," "the guilt ridden one," "the bland one who's gonna get it first" and "the token one." The back-burner story about the 5th friend is as shallow and pointless as the characters. The one saving grace of this movie is the true star of the cast ... The Woods. OMG, those woods were beautiful and creepy as hell at the same time. If a decent and original story with believable characters had been filmed in those woods, it may have produced a future classic. But alas, we got a very forgettable movie that will make you want to see the four films that obviously inspired it.

There are several factors that weaken this thriller/horror, but the one dire thing that makes it an overall failure is the makers grave mistake of making every moment of the "found tapes" all super grainy, flickering, fading, distorted, blinking and rolling frames of footage. I have home video tapes that I recorded in the 80s, with the absolute cheapest camera and cheapest blank tapes, stored in an outside shed, and over 30 years later, none of them look or perform like the "found footage" of over 800 videotapes in this film. It's mind boggling how no one involved in making this film realized this horrible error they were making. They even point out during the film that the 800 tapes were kept safely stored in a closet, in a controlled temperature environment, yet they expect the viewer to believe that every second of hundreds of hours of footage are all in horrific condition. So, that huge, unforgivable mistake combined with some poor acting and some very laughable, obviously and poorly scripted "input" from many of the authorities involved with the case, makes me tell others that this movie is one to skip.