The Scream Queen Who Couldn't Scream  Spoilers

How I discovered Emily Blunt was unconventional, as I was simply a pre-teen who was on her iPad Mini to play Minecraft, consume YouTubers at their peak, and watch clips of The Ellen Show. It's thanks to my 12 year old obsession of Pitch Perfect that lured me to the Into the Woods press tour, and being charmed by Emily Blunt in the process. Thank you so much Anna Kendrick for being the Barden Bella that you will always be ❤️ (And yes, Meryl Streep is also below, Into the Woods was such a stacked cast?!)

From watching Emily talk about how nervous she was to audition for Into the Woods to seeing her finally receive an Oscar nom, I've fangirled over her from afar for quite some time. The distance is striking when I share with you that I even follow her stylist and makeup artist on Instagram, as Emily is many things, but not an influencer (unfortunately).

Cut to 2018. I couldn't have been more excited to not just see Emily back on my YouTube home page constantly again, but also alongside her husband, John Krasinski, as they were promoting A Quiet Place. The fact that within the Krunt household, John was writing the script for A Quiet Place at the same time as Emily was filming Mary Poppins — truly a power couple. Needless to say, I'm a BIG fan of the Krunts ✨

“I'd come home from work and be like, I danced with penguins! And he was like, I killed a kid on page 4!”

- Emily Blunt on Jimmy Kimmel Live

So you can imagine the biases I have as I write about why Emily Blunt is a scream queen. I mean, the premise of A Quiet Place is that you literally can't scream.

But this only elevated one of my all-time favourite performances from her, which could only possibly be topped by her performance in A Quiet Place III. Evelyn Abbott, I look forward to reuniting with you on July 9th, 2027 (and you're welcome for the free promo like two years in advance… but also not this movie being announced two years in advance?!).

“If they hear you, they hunt you”

For those of you who live under a rock and still haven't seen A Quiet Place… then congrats, you totally would've survived. Well, only if your rock was soundproof.

The film opens on Day 89 of an apocalyptic world where people have learnt to live in isolation to survive.

Oh sorry, that was what COVID was. I think 89 days into COVID was around when my high school graduation sort of took place. Anyways…

A Quiet Place isolates not just people, but your senses. The film sets up the daunting world as it shows how the Abbott family has adapted, by laying sand paths to walk on and playing Monopoly with felt pieces. Their deaf daughter, Regan, makes the film's silence even more profound as their society has adjusted to what had already been her way of life.

Simply put, the “scream” factor is removed from what's typically a defining feature of a horror film. Instead of screams, the silence creeps up on you, building the tensest atmosphere in a muted world. As the family tries to survive the onslaught of monsters with hyper-sensitive hearing, it becomes clear to the audience that making any noise can lead to danger, which their youngest child discovers not even 10 minutes into the film while playing with his rocket toy.

As much as the tension has built up over the course of the film, Evelyn's birth was what the family was really bracing for all along. Bringing a baby into this world seems literally impossible, as it’d be over the moment the baby’s cry is heard. Red lights flash. Evelyn signals that she’s about to give birth, Lee (John Krasinski) urges their son to set off fireworks — the same kind of noise that once brought tragedy, now becoming their only hope. As the explosions fill the night sky, Evelyn finally lets out the agonizing pain she’s been holding in.

What’s so powerful about her scream is that it isn’t from fear of the monster, but from the sheer pain she's been keeping inside. Not only is she fearful for the new life she’s bringing in, but she's still recovering from the suffering of the one that she lost. When she finally screams, it’s a literal release of these emotions that pierces through the silenced world.

Who are we if we can't protect them? Who are we?

What I love most about A Quiet Place is not that I knew that no one around me would be talking as the film was showing, but the overarching theme of parenthood. Amongst the chaos, Evelyn and Lee still capture moments of connecting with their children, and even make the ultimate sacrifice at the end. It’s almost a subgenre of horror. Not the kind that jumps out from the shadows, but the kind that lingers quietly in the fear of losing the ones you love. The film depicts the horror of trying to hold a family together when the world itself has turned hostile to life, of learning to live with grief while still finding the strength to nurture hope.

It’s apparent in Emily’s filmography that horror isn’t a genre she appears in often, or really at all. So she’s not the scream queen that would come to mind off the top of your head, but A Quiet Place certainly shows a side of her masterful versatility. She doesn’t need to rely on screams or jump scares to make us feel fear — she embodies it, quietly, with every shaky breath and trembling glance. Who needs screams, or even dialogue, when her physicality represents all the panic at once?

Emily redefines what it means to be a scream queen. She proves that resilience isn’t something that needs to be flaunted loudly. And in a genre that so often rewards volume, she reigns supreme for saying the most without making a sound.

TLDR: This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for Emily Blunt, and I guess her husband too <3