When New York is invaded by sound-sensitive aliens, terminally ill Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) and her cat Frodo (Nico and Schnitzel) search for one last slice of pizza in the apocalyptic prequel they should have called The Day After Tomato.

This decibel-meter pizza creature feature is far sweeter than its bleaker predecessors, swapping the aggravating characters of A Quiet Place for an instantly relatable protagonist whose priorities are pizza, her cat, and death. They are joined on this pizza pilgrimage by a White Man (Joseph Quinn), whose main priority seems to be showing the clearly disinterested terminally ill woman his card tricks.

Pig director Michael Sarnoski deserves a snout-out for attempting to add flavour to the tired premise, but the film is hamstrung by also having to be an A Quiet Place movie. Every intimate moment is interrupted by a pointless monster attack, which are obviously required but do nothing to further the story or characters.

The outcome is a generic disaster flick that ticks the usual boxes (sheltering in a church, going down into the subway etc.), essentially I Am Legend with a cat instead of a dog – a bold move considering it literally requires herding cats. And though Frodo’s total lack of meowing stretches pawsibility, you forgive the film because Nico and Schnitzel bring a subtlety to the franchise that Emily Blunt and John Krasinski simply cannot pizza express.

If A Quiet Place was a horror movie for people who don’t like horror movies, A Quiet Place: Day One is an A Quiet Place movie for people who don’t like A Quiet Place movies. As a result it fails for both fans of the franchise and those wishing it was quirkier. It’s like eating one of those pizzas with a salad-filled hole in the middle; once the novelty has worn off you’re just hungrily staring into nothingness.