The director of A Quiet Place: Day One has explained why a cat figures into the movie so centrally. The New York-set prequel movie is the third installment in the post-apocalyptic franchise, which sees the Earth besieged with sightless alien monsters who hunt via sound. Despite following the devastation of an entire city, the core A Quiet Place: Day One cast is relatively small, primarily focusing on Lupita Nyong'o as Sam, Joseph Quinn as Eric, and Nico & Schnitzel as Sam's pet Frodo the Cat.

Collider recently sat down with A Quiet Place: Day One director Michael Sarnoski to discuss the hit horror movie. Sarnoski explains that giving Sam a pet dog was never part of the conversation, because a dog "would just see a creature and start barking," which would lead to its immediate demise. He describes cats as more "quiet" and "predatory," which makes Frodo a better fit for the franchise in addition to evoking the stray cats that are a fixture of New York City. Read the director's full quote below:

No one said it should be a dog. I think people got that I think cats are more like predatory animals. They know to be quiet, they know how to survive and to hunt. I think a dog would just see a creature and start barking, and it wouldn't go great. So, I think it made sense. It also made sense in the New York environment. There's kind of this stray street-cat vibe that works for Frodo. I know Lupita was kind of cautious about working with a cat because she was really afraid of cats when we started this movie, but she was willing to commit and brave that, and by the end, she loved cats, and she has her own now. It always made sense that it was a cat, but it definitely had its struggles.

How Frodo Amplifies A Quiet Place: Day One

The Cat's Presence Evokes New York City Perfectly

Frodo's presence services the A Quiet Place: Day One release in many ways, though one of the most important is in grounding the movie in a true New York City feeling. In addition to evoking the stray cats around the city, Frodo's presence is explicitly connected to the trope of the city's bodegas frequently having their own cats, and more subtly evokes the long run of the iconic Broadway show Cats, which is another New York staple. He is a constant reminder of the New York City that formerly existed, just days before the alien monsters descended on the planet.

In addition to this subtextual function, Frodo is very important for motivating Sam's character throughout A Quiet Place: Day One. She is a terminally ill cancer patient for whom the idea of fighting for survival is complicated, so the presence of Frodo gives her something to live for while chaos and destruction descend upon the city. Her desire to protect her cat both explains some of her behavior early in the movie and adds to the potential danger at the center of the story.

Frodo is named after the lead character of Lord of the Rings , another character who is on a major journey.

Ultimately, it makes sense why so many A Quiet Place: Day One reviews see fit to specifically mention Frodo alongside praise of the movie's human actors. The cat's presence deepens the experience of the movie considerably. While a dog might have performed a similar function for Sam's character arc, Sarnoski is right that it wouldn't make sense for a dog to remain as quiet as the whip-smart Frodo consistently does, in addition to the fact that it wouldn't evoke New York in the same way whatsoever.

Source: Collider