MovieChat Forums > A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) Discussion > Movies about monsters that hunt by sound...

Movies about monsters that hunt by sound never make sense


The only one I've seen that actually makes any sense is Tremors, because those monsters technically hunt by vibration (kinda the same thing but they're attracted more to a sound's volume and uniqueness rather than any and every sound) and they are intelligent beings that can recognize certain sounds as decoys or unhuntable things, like the wind blowing or flowing water in a creek. In basically every other movie where monsters hunt by sound, it just fails to make sense.

There's a moment in the trailer where someone knocks over a folder full of paper and it attracts like 30 monsters from several blocks away. Why? That sound is probably 50-60 db. In an abandoned city full of metal and junk, sounds like that would be incredibly common and 95% of them would be natural. Do hundreds of these beasts flock whenever a door creaks or if a gust of wind knocks over a wooden sign? Do these creatures hunt the blowing wind?

The worst offender I've seen is The Silence, which also has blind monsters that hunt by sound. In that movie, monsters can be attracted to a single quiet footstep from over 100 yards away. That level of sensitivity is counterproductive. Like, an intentionally soft and careful footstep is about 10 db, less than a soft breeze or even a heartbeat. So basically these creatures would be sent into a frenzy anytime the wind blows because the sound of the wind rustling the trees would be the equivalent of nonstop deafening gunfire going off right next to them. The writers of The Silence never thought to address this though.

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your theory is that folders full of paper are regularly knocked over such that their distinct sounds should be considered background noise in a city full of metal and junk? uh what?

dude, hunting random sounds is precisely what they'd do until they learn by experience what's likely to be something interesting and what's not. they'd learn the totality of sound in relation to one another chronologically too to consider such - not just sounds amidst other natural sounds

every single sound made in nature has a unique timbre because of the difference in molecular make up. an evolved enough sensory organ would pick up, uniquely identify, and filter-focus those footsteps amidst wind rustling

this is basic

humans do it (hopefully you are able to recognize difference between the voice of someone talking to outside vs the vehicle traffic passing by)

dogs do it when they decide to bark at noises outside

go look up bats or something

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I disagree.

The monsters in the movies I listed don't seem to have much intellect outside of being mindless killers who flock to every sound. Very different from bats.

Also, I should clarify that your points in THEORY would probably work in REAL LIFE, but the writers don't seem to think about these things. For example, the humans could very easily condition the monsters into thinking certain sounds don't mean anything, which would allow the humans to live a bit more freely. Purposely step on wood floorboards, immediately hide, let the monsters come and find nothing, so the monsters eventually think that the sound of feet on floorboards mean nothing. This is your logic, is it not?

But I still fail to understand how blind monsters so sensitive to certain sounds could filter out much larger, constant noises like rain or wind. Cats have brilliant eyesight but if you shined a 10,000-lumen flashlight straight into their face, they wouldn't be able to filter out that light and see other objects past the flashlight. Again, your example of "bats or something" doesn't work because bats hunt by echolocation, not sound. They hunt by using their ability to echolocate prey, not sitting and listening to the very faint sounds of feet scurrying around. Bats also have pretty good eyesight, and can LOOK DOWN at the sound they detect and decide whether its food or not.

And your example of dogs doesn't work because dogs have other senses, like vision and smell, that can immediately deduce a certain object from prey or foe. These monsters in these movies don't seem to have any other senses besides hearing. These monsters can't look at an object and realize it's meaningless the same way a dog can.

In fact, a quick google search will reveal that there are no animals in nature that are totally blind and hunt solely by sound. The closest we have in real life are animals that use echolocation to hunt in pure darkness. The monsters in A Quiet Place and The Silence aren't using echolocation, they just have very sensitive hearing.

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Adapt and move on.

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