Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for A Quiet Place: Day One.
What the survivalist family in upstate New York goes through is intense, from a noisy toy fatality, stepping on a loose nail, and getting attacked by feral people. Now three movies in this franchise, a major component ofA Quiet Place: Day One’s new trick to keep the audience on the edge of their seat is Frodo the cat.The breakout star in this horror prequel adheres to a crucial piece of advice found inBlake Synder’s book on screenwriting,Save the Cat!, where the author places importance on a key moment. When the main character does an act of kindness, such as saving a cat, they become someone you want to root for.Day Onenot only does this but it lets the domesticated, four-legged actor bring his own star power as a new addition to the horror genre’s representation of little felines. Even if you go in to watch Oscar winnerLupita Nyong’oandStranger ThingsdarlingJoseph Quinn, you will leave talking about little Frodo. Animal lovers will squirm as they worry over his safety when he scurries off or gets too close to danger, but he isn’t used as a mere gimmick.Day Onetreats the cat as important to the main humans’ survival as staying quiet.
A Quiet Place: Day One
Cats Have a Long History in Horror Movies
Frodo the tuxedo catinDay Onejoins the long line of the horror genre’s depictions of cats, from the creepy to the sweet. There’s the cliché trope where usually a black cat pops out of the shadows for a jump scare and a variation where the monster pops out soon after. A more vicious version is in 1989’sPet Sematarywith Church, the hissing British shorthair with glowing eyes that is the harbinger of the nefarious consequences should the central graveyard be used for resurrection. Frodo is on the sweeter side of this spectrum, with a role similar to the orange tabby Jonesy inAlienwith both kitties caught in an alien invasion.
Like how Frodo is held tightly in the arms of Sam (Nyong’o) while making her way through the chaos in New York City, Jonesy’s curious eyes watch theXenomorphkill off the lucklessHarry Dean Stanton, the shadows moving across the cat’s face. Blake Synder’s “save the cat” plot device is on full display when Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) holds a flamethrower in one hand and the cat carrier in the other. She doesn’t forget the orange tabby, even though she may leave Jonesy behind temporarily or bang the carrier around in her dash to get to the escape pod. Every crew member is dead, and the spaceship is on the countdown to self-destruct, butRipley proves she is one of the best sci-fi icons when she saves the cat.
Then Jonesy has a grumpy reaction that cat owners will know too well. He growls at Ripley in the escape pod, annoyed at her cuddling him when he just wants to lie down for a nap. Seeing pets in these horror films plays on the universal fear of seeing lovable animals in dangerous situations.A Quiet Place: Day Onegoes further than what Jonesy went through on the Nostromo by constantly seeing Frodo have close encounters with the deadly aliens.It’s every owner’s nightmare when their pet runs away, and Sam endures this more than once.
Does the Cat Die in ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’?
Early inDay One, Sam’s nurse and friend Reuben (Alex Wolff) recovers Frodo, reuniting owner and pet, which connects back to that “save the cat” idea. However, the audience’s sympathy for Reuben leads to a tragic outcome. His good nature costs him his life, and his death propels Sam to venture into the city. When Frodo runs off again, he isn’t the one who needs rescuing this time. The tuxedo cat wanders to a flooded subway entrance where Eric (Quinn) has hidden under the water. The first thing he sees is the cat staring back at him, a sight that eases down his state of panic. Frodo’s little face becomes a tether for Eric, and he mindlessly follows Frodo back to Sam, and a reluctant human duo forms.
‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Has a Resounding Global Box Office Debut
Starring Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn, the prequel is directed by Michael Sarnoski.
As important as Frodo is, his safety doesn’t seem likely. Not when he climbs onto a beam above a horde of hungry aliens, or when Eric and Sam get caught in the flooding waters inside a subway tunnel. Spoiler warning! Frodo the cat does make it out alive, and somehow, he never even coughs up a hairball. It would be a sound that would alert the sonic-based creatures instantaneously. This may seem like a cheat or flaw in the writing, and while a creative choice might have found a way to figure it out, it doesn’t change the fact that the catneedsto survive. His role inDay Oneis more than “save the cat.” He helps two strangers on their journey through a wasteland, and this is whyA Quiet Place: Day One’s director named his characters after the Hobbit besties inThe Lord of the Rings.
‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Connects to ‘The Lord of the Rings’
Inwriter-directorMichael Sarnoski’s feature debut, 2021’sPig, he placed importance on the relationship between humans and animals and explores this again in his second feature. He explained in anEW interviewthat he refers to the prequel as an “odyssey.”In a time of crisis, Sam’s only mission is to get to a pizzeria that holds special memories of her late father.It’s a personal quest, but a quest nonetheless, and this is why Sarnoski felt he could include his love forThe Lord of the Ringsby naming Nyong’o’s character Sam, and the cat Frodo.
When Eric gets involved, the pair turn into a trio. Once this happens, and they set off for a slice of pizza, the director says that this is what the film is about, “How people support each other through that journey.” Sam is struggling with the pain from terminal cancer, and Eric’s aspirations of being a lawyer are no more.BecauseA Quiet Placeis a series based on the premise that silence equals survival, using a cat makes perfect sense to create a bond without the need for Sam and Eric to share too many words.Without the cover of rainfall or thunder, they have to stay quiet, which is deftly handled by Frodo. Sarnoski explained he is Sam’s “service cat” and talked about why he was well-equipped for the aliens in aHollywood Reporterinterview.
“She’s almost trained the cat to not annoy everyone at the hospice center,” he said. “I read a study about how a lot of meowing is learned behavior. It’s how they communicate with human beings. When cats are on their own, they don’t meow that much. So I figured that when the apocalypse happens and everyone’s gone, they would maybe keep it down. I also felt like cats are natural, silent predators and game recognizes game.”
Halfway through,Frodo becomes Eric’s therapy animal to calm his fears and anxieties.He’s from out of the country, with no friends or relatives nearby; it’s implied his parents are mostly likely killed by the aliens too. Frodo then becomes the link to build a partnership between two strangers with an uncertain future. In the finale, the references fromThe Lord of the Ringsare flipped for a farewell that is just as poignant asJ.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy.
‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Makes Frodo the Cat an Important Character
Like how Frodo leaves his friends to sail awayand find peace after successfully destroying the Ring,Sam is the character inDay Onewho leaves her loved ones behindto help Eric get on a ferry for a chance of survival. When Sam passes her loyal cat onto Eric, it’s her way of sharing a memory of herself and giving him a symbol of hope against doomsday. In theHollywood Reporterinterview, Sarnoski wanted this to be taken away fromDay One, saying, “To care about just a cat, to care about just a slice of pizza, to care about just a stranger. When there’s so much going on that you feel overwhelmed by the world, being able to refocus on the things that really matter and make us feel like human beings is essential.”
A sweet final image in DayOneof Eric and Frodo cuddling after their long journey may just be powerful enough to turn pro-dog viewers into cat lovers.Lupita Nyong’o even credits her cat co-stars, Nico and Schnitzel, for proving to her that her severe catphobia was misguided. Her positive experience while filming with them led to her finding her own special friend after filming was over. “It may look like I saved Yoyo, but really, Yoyo is saving me,” she wrote in anInstagram postannouncing the adoption of her cat. It’s a far better result than theallergic reaction Sigourney Weaver sufferedby snuggling Jonesy back inAlien.
So yes, the cat lives, and inthe horror genre where they can be tiny terrors, Frodo deserves the highest quality can of wet food for his part in helping the humans.A Quiet Place: Day Onedoesn’t rely only on putting Frodo in scenes to stress the audience out, that’s just one part of it. The prequel knows how important a loyal animal can be to humans in this series, where the world seems to be completely hopeless. Although the family from the first two installments is connected by blood, Sam and Eric are connected by circumstances. They’re strangers with a feline companion who find their way to some peace without shotguns or weaponized hearing aids. And when the credits roll, Frodo the cat is a doomsday survivor.
