A Quiet Place: Day One is a chilling and intimate prequel to the original Quiet Place which– though offering little in alien-specific origins and impact – evokes as many tears as nail bites. Centering on New York City on the verge and into the beginning of the franchise’s echo-locating alien invasion, Day One follows Sam (Lupita Nyong’o), a terminal cancer patient living in hospice with her service cat, Frodo. As the aliens invade, she quickly learns silence’s necessity for survival, exploring the city in search of some pizza due to her cancer’s now aggressive progression without medical infrastructure. On her journey, her cat leads terrified law school student Eric (Joseph Quinn) back to her, where the two embark on getting her pizza and saving the (non-ill) Eric from New York’s doom. While mostly surviving, the pair also rediscover components and quirks that make them human, from nostalgic old memories to newfound fun and joy together – making Day One a touching watch when the tides calm.

Day One‘s story is propelling when humanistically driven, especially given the central duo’s ingratiatingly morose performances. The majority of the film’s runtime is dedicated to them finding slivers of hope and humanity to live on, balancing the horrors of the new world with the comforts of empathy and kindness. Viewers watch as they learn about each other, doing their best to help not just survive, but live, however they can. Nyong’o and Quinn equally crank the empathy in their performances for this, as they each yearn for now rapidly wavering slivers of joy or contentedness to keep going. The film effectively narrates the power of human connectivity, demonstrating through Nyong’o and Quinn how far desperate people go for the little things that make life worth living, like a slice of pizza or a cat. It’s a solid reentry into the franchise now separate from the original starring family, reminding of the people horrifically scarred by these aliens.

While this intimacy bodes well for its character centric approach, Day One unfortunately lacks proper alien explanation and destruction. Viewers see the initial onset and the terror a horde of aliens brings, but the film doesn’t demonstrate how the world falls so quickly. The world goes from functioning and noisy to falling apart and a silent wasteland in mere minutes, focusing instead on the main characters’ experiences. Simply put, this scope is too narrow to view the beginning of this global alien onslaught, because viewers are rushed through the big bits of societal collapse and mass homicides required for such global destruction. There should be more emphasis on the larger messes got created. The film’s upclose focus also strains the pacing quite a bit, as what could have been a tightly paced horror in NYC became longwinded in at least transition between action and emotion. There’s enough horror and layered storybeats to satisfy, but more natural pacing and a wider scope could have pushed Day One much higher.

Speaking of the terror, Day One‘s sights and sounds are as horrifyingly real as ever, of course. The city setting allows for great alien wall-scaling in large numbers; dozens or hundreds of aliens jump, speed and kill at a time on screen. While some of the scare techniques, at least for A Quiet Place fans pre-Day One, can feel ineffective, most of them work because of a jolty score and the new setting. It’s certainly not consistently terrifying, but it is still a tense ride for the eyes and ears.

Overall, A Quiet Place: Day One is an emotionally heavy, intense addition in the Quiet Place franchise that does more to continue the series’ emotional heft than expand on its lore. It’s definitely not as hard-hitting as both earlier entries, but it’s still realistically scary and traumatizing enough to stand tall with them. Plus, Day One provides a chance to watch New York City fall silent, which is rare in real and fictitious settings.

Opens in theaters everywhere Friday, 6/28