Summary

• The Silence movie features a family using silence to survive Vesps, similar to A Quiet Place.
• The Hushed cult in The Silence represents adaptation to new predators in a post-apocalyptic world.
• The Vesps in The Silence use sound to hunt, reproduce quickly, and cause widespread devastation.

The Netflix The Silence movie follows a family trying to survive an apocalyptic outbreak of monsters. Called "Vesps," these flying creatures hunt by sound, so the only way to survive is to stay absolutely silent. This tactic is easier for the Andrews family, who all learned sign language after Ally (Kiernan Shipka) lost her hearing in an accident. However, not everyone survives until the movie's ending. It sounds familiar because A Quiet Place also features monsters that hunt by sound, a deaf daughter, and a family that knows sign language.

However, The Silence predates A Quiet Place, adapted from Tim Lebbon's 2015 novel. John R. Leonetti directed the film, which stars Stanley Tucci, Miranda Otto, and John Corbett. After realizing that the creatures on the news are attracted to sound, the Andrews family leaves the city for somewhere quieter. Unfortunately, a new danger arrives in the form of a cult called The Hushed, who cut their tongues out as a tribute to the new world order. The Hushed begin harassing Hugh's (Tucci) family, leading to something even more sinister.

What Happens At The End Of The Silence?

The Hushed Nearly Kill The Andrews Family

In The Silence movie ending, Ally (Kiernan Shipka) and Hugh attempt to find antibiotics to stave off an infection in Kelly's (Otto) leg. When they leave the pharmacy, they encounter a cult leader of The Hushed (Billy MacLellan) and ignore his attempts to ingratiate them into the fold. The cult then follows them from the pharmacy to the remote safe house. Hugh tries his best to get the cultists to leave him and the rest of the Andrews family alone, only for The Reverend to explain that they want Ally because "the girl is fertile."

Hugh threatens them with a rifle, and they seemingly disappear. That night, Hugh tells Kelly the family should head north since the Vesps can't live in the cold. However, everything falls apart when the cult sends in a child armed with cellphones set to go off with alarms as soon as she enters the house. The noises attract the Vesps, and the family retreats to the basement, where they find The Hushed waiting.

Lynn sacrifices herself by screaming and causing the Vesps to devour her and the cultists.

Cultists attempt to drag Ally out of the house, but Grandma Lynn (Kaye Trotter) fights them off. Lynn sacrifices herself by screaming and causing the Vesps to devour her and the cultists. The remaining of the Andrews family are later shown living further north, alive and well, with Ally's boyfriend, Rob (Dempsey Bryk).

What Are The Creatures In The Silence? Monsters Explained

They Are Ancient Bat-Like Creatures

Like something from a Jurassic Park meets Alien crossover movie, the creatures in Netflix's The Silence are pterodactyl-type monsters called "Vesps." The opening scene shows that the Vesps escape from a sealed underground cave system and will devour anything that makes a sound. Ally does a bit of research on the monsters and finds that Vesps are an ancient species that evolved during their entrapment.

Like real cave dwellers like bats, Vesps are blind and can only find their prey through sound. Another disturbing element of the monsters is their proclivity to lay eggs in the bodies of their victims. The Silence movie's ending asks who will adapt first: the Vesps to the cold or the humans to the silence.

The SIlence novel was published three years before A Quiet Place was released.

The Hushed Represent Adaptation & Evolution

They Know How To Survive In A Terrifying New World

They might seem like a typical apocalyptic cult but the Reverend and his followers, The Hushed, represent one of the major themes of not only The Silence but also the A Quiet Place franchise and Netflix's other release, Bird Box. All three movies introduce a new predator into the ecosystem and show how humanity adapts to survive. In Bird Box, for example, Sandra Bullock's character teaches her children always to use blindfolds outside to survive.

The Abbotts in A Quiet Place and the Andrews family in The Silence both adapt by communicating through sign language, but The Silence's cult of The Hushed has a different approach in mind. They cut out their tongues, knowing that their voices will get them killed in this new world, and the Reverend unsettlingly reveals they're interested in capturing Ally because she's "fertile," reminiscent of a Waco-type cult.

One of the best chances at survival is to reproduce and replenish.

While the odds are heavily in favor of the Reverend only wanting a "fertile" teenage girl because he's an ab, that wording is significant because it ties in with The Silence movie's ending themes of evolution. When a former apex predator is confronted by a new apex predator, one of the best chances at survival is to reproduce and replenish. Unfortunately, the Vesps have an unfair advantage in that regard.

The Silence's Ending Reveals How The Vesps Caused An Apocalypse

Their Breeding Cycle Was Too Quick For Anyone To Stop

As with most apocalypse movies, one of the first questions is how the might of the United States military was so helpless in the face of rampaging creatures like the Vesps. After escaping from a cave system where they have been evolving for thousands of years, the Vesps quickly cover the country in devastating numbers, slaughtering entire cities full of people until The Silence movie's ending. It would require unlimited Vesps, more than could be feasibly contained in a single cave system.

Tim Lebbon's book explains The Silence infestation, as the Vesp takeover is facilitated by the fact that they breed extraordinarily quickly - laying eggs in the bodies of their victims that hatch rapidly. The Vesp plague spreads more rapidly than an Army of The Dead-inspired zombie plague. A zombie can only create one new zombie at a time; a Vesp can lay a dozen eggs and move on to lay a dozen more. The Silence's ending reveals the Vesps' breeding strategy, showing a recently killed wolf where a Vesp has laid translucent eggs — the babies already well-formed.

The Silence's Ending Is All About Survival Of The Fittest

Both Humans & Vesps Have To Adapt Or Die

The Silence, A Quiet Place, and Bird Box are interesting because they all reframe something that would have traditionally been thought of as a disability — blindness or deafness — as a survival trait that gives people an evolutionary advantage. Ally is better suited to survive in the new world because she's used to communicating without sound, much like Regan from A Quiet Place. The Silence movie's ending shows her and Rob hunting the Vesps in the woods and offers hope for a future where humans can, if not wipe out the Vesps, then at least survive alongside them.

Also crucial to The Silence's ending is the Andrews family heading North to The Refuge, where the Vesps are less numerous because they have not adapted to the cold. Evolution takes quite a long time. In the interim, humanity's best chance at survival is to relocate to areas where their new predators can't venture. If humanity in Netflix's The Silence can first adapt to the violent change in the ecosystem, then evolution will follow.

How The Silence Movie Ending Differs From The Book

The Location, Cult's Needs, & Final Stinger Changes

Tim Lebbon published The Silence in 2015, years before A Quiet Place hit theaters. The two movies also went into production around the same time, so the comparisons were mostly just coincidental. However, the comparisons remain there thanks to The Silence not being released as a movie after it wrapped, and Netflix releasing it much later after A Quiet Place had already become a worldwide success. That said, the movie made big changes from the source novel.

The Netflix movie moved the action to the United States, making it harder to buy. The United States is a massive country, and the Vesps seemed to get across it at lightning speed. Meanwhile, the novel takes place in the U.K., with the family on their way to Scotland. A much more compact area, the Vesps could get around much quicker there, and it made more sense. Another change was the cult, who didn't want Ally because she could help them reproduce. In the novel, they want her because she knows sign language, which changes that dynamic.

There was also a scene in The Silence movie ending that was not in the novel. This change occurs when the family is in the cold "refuge" hunting Vesps. The film added it to give a hopeful, happy ending, but it almost takes away from the tragedies they underwent to get to that point. The book ends with the family heading north and hoping to find safety, but it leaves it more up to the readers to decide, whereas the movie lays it all out with a bow at the end.