Episode 85 of Film Reroll. Inspired by the 2018 horror movie.
Released on April 1, 2020, A Quiet Place takes the Film Reroll concept into a new, radical direction. The story follows the Abbots, a family living on a post-apolcalyptic Earth, in which most of humanity has been wiped out during an Alien Invasion. The aliens in question are blind, so the only way to avoid them is to stay completely silent so they never know you're there. The Rerollers achieve the same effect by never speaking — neither in nor out of character — communicating purely by gestures and written messages. This results in a tense, gripping session for the players, but may be somewhat dull to listen to, as it was not filmed but only recorded on microphone.
... Okay, we admit it. This is an April Fools joke.
Technically starring Jon Miller as Lee Abbott, Jocelyn "Joz" Vammer as Evelyn Abbott, Andy Hoover as Marcus Abbott, Kara Straitnote as Regan Abbott and Paulo Quiros as the Dungeon Master.
Followed by Ocean's Eleven.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: It's probably fair to say that a basic understanding of at least the premise of A Quiet Place is required to get the joke behind this campaign.
- April Fools' Day: A Quiet Place is an April Fools episode of Film Reroll. This was a prank played on the audience, in which the players explain that in order to reproduce the movie, they cannot make any noise during this episode. This was then followed by an hour of silence (with occasional interjections).
- Anyone Can Die: All of the protagonists die... somehow.
- Crosscast Role: Played With. Regan was — technically — Kara Strait’s last female starring role before she came out as trans. Not that it really affects the listening experience much...
- Death Seeker: Regan develops one. It's unclear if this is due to the events of the story or just a side effect of being played by Kara Strait.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Played for laughs: When everyone's in the soundproof room, Paulo states there's someone at the door, prompting Jon to try and get everyone to shut up... except Kara keeps talking. As such:Joz: [Kara]! You're the deaf one! Shut up!(everyone laughs)Kara: Okay, that's a hate crime!
- Gainax Ending: Inverted. It starts out like any other Film Reroll episode, with Paulo Quiros explaining the gimmick of this particular campaign. Then the gameplay starts, and the (very deliberate) issues with the premise quickly dawn on the listener.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Played for Laughs. The characters and the players stay completely silent for most of the episode. This obviously doesn't translate well to audio format...
- The Greatest Story Never Told: The whole episode. We only get snippets of the plot from the brief moments of dialogue there are. If the episode description is to be believed (
it likely isn’t) there were more than one Offscreen Moment of Awesome. - Imperiled in Pregnancy: Maybe. Joz asks DM Paulo Quiros if her character is still pregnant. He can't actually answer, as even the DM is not exempt from the no-talking rule.
- No-Sell: Marcus Abbor dies after Andy Hoover points out that his die rolled off the table. As it turns out, whispering is not allowed.
- Older Than They Look: Variation: At the end, Kara accidentally states the podcast has been going on for almost two decades:Kara: Look man, we've been doing the show for seventeen years... We gotta start coming up with new ideas and they don't always work.
- The Quiet Game: The whole episode is basically an hour-long round of this. However, the gameplay audio was looped to stretch it out further.
- Shout-Out: The Rerollers claim that the aliens from this film make a cameo in The Phantom Menace, a reference to the actual cameo by E.T.'s species in the film.
- Silence Is Golden: Pretty much the plot of the whole episode.
- Suddenly Voiced: After locking themselves into a soundproof cabin, the characters do in fact get to speak for a brief moment, which they spend mostly worrying about the aliens outside.
- Take Our Word for It: Do any of the things mentioned in the episode description actually happen? Are Kara and Andy's claims that the group was doing surprisngly effective ASL all campaign true? Who knows?!
