If you missed A Quiet Place: Day One in theaters last year, Netflix is giving you another shot. The prequel, which grossed more than $260 million at the worldwide box office, lands on the streamer this week alongside a handful of other new titles for July 27 through August 2.

I'll say this about the Quiet Place franchise: it's one of the few horror series that actually earned its expansion. The original 2018 film worked because it was so contained, just a family trying to survive in near silence, and you'd think widening the lens to show the first day of the invasion would dilute what made it special. Instead, Day One found its own emotional core. Lupita Nyong'o carrying the story through New York City as everything falls apart, with a cat and Joseph Quinn's character in tow, gave the movie a different kind of intimacy. Less about survival tactics, more about what you hold onto when there's nothing left to hold.

For me, it was the best of the three films. I know that's not a universal take. Jess Wingo and I went back and forth on this for a while and she still ranks the original first, but the prequel's scale and its willingness to be genuinely sad in ways that go beyond scare tactics put it over the top for me. If you're catching it for the first time on Netflix, watch it with the lights off and the volume up. Sound design is everything here.

Beyond Day One, [Netflix's weekly slate](https://www.aol.com/articles/260m-prequel-emily-blunt-horror-143000000.html) includes the usual mix of licensed titles and originals rolling out across the week. Nothing else this week is hitting at quite the same level of must-watch, but it's a solid batch if you're looking to fill out your queue.

If you've been sleeping on the Quiet Place series entirely, this is a good excuse to start from the beginning. The original with Emily Blunt and John Krasinski still holds up beautifully, and Part II expands the world in ways that set the table for the prequel. Three movies, one tight mythology, barely a wasted scene across the bunch. In a genre where horror franchises tend to run themselves into the ground by the third entry, that's worth something.

So that's my Friday night sorted. Maybe yours too.