Writer-director Michael Sarnoski follows his head-turning debut, ‘Pig,’ with this third chapter of the hit sci-fi franchise, also starring Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff and Djimon Hounsou.

If you want to breathe new life into a horror movie built around silence as the only means of surviving an alien invasion, there are countless worse ideas than relocating the story from small-town U.S.A. to over-populated New York City. Opening screen text over an aerial shot of Manhattan accompanied by the cacophonous sounds of car horns, sirens and shouting informs us that the Big Apple has an average noise level of 90 decibels, the equivalent of a human scream. The setting alone makes the taut and consistently terrifying A Quiet Place: Day One an intense experience that deftly extends a durable franchise.

The short answer is a definite yes. The sophomore writer-director adapts to the requirements of the genre, expertly sustaining tension, peppering big scares throughout and earning our emotional investment in the key characters. Plus a cat. But he also finds the space to infuse many of the qualities that elevated his 2021 Nicolas Cage vehicle, notably control, restraint, compassion and the purring motor of a movie that’s as much a melancholy quest narrative as a thriller about mortal peril.

The 2021 sequel, A Quiet Place Part 2, continued their story but added a 10-minute prologue unfolding on Day One, in which families at a Little League baseball game watch in alarm as what looks like a meteorite hurtles through the sky and makes impact in the near distance. While parents are still rushing to get their kids home amid a state of escalating panic, spindly, cabbage-headed creatures with lethal claws descend en masse, moving with dizzying speed to pounce on and butcher any human that makes a sound.

The new film mirrors that mayhem in a setting not conducive to silence. Sarnoski starts patiently, introducing Nyong’o’s Samira making a surly contribution to her therapy group at a hospice just outside the city. If her angry resignation doesn’t clue us in, then her transdermal fentanyl patches are a clear indication that she has terminal cancer, while her demeanor suggests that she never expected to stick around this long.

Kind nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff, reuniting with Sarnoski after Pig) considers himself Samira’s friend even if she scoffs at that notion. But he persuades her to come on a group outing to a New York marionette theater, using the promise of pizza on the way home as an incentive. Cradling her inseparable service cat, Frodo, she barely gets through the opening act of the puppet show before making an exit. When Reuben tells her they’ve been instructed to return to the hospice ASAP because of some unstated citywide emergency, she’s pissed that he reneges on the pizza promise.

Despite the chaos and confusion, it’s quickly established that the extraterrestrial predators are sightless and respond only to noise. The mobilized military also figure out fast that the creatures can’t swim, prompting an evacuation plan via ferries from South Street Seaport. But headstrong Samira insists on heading uptown to Harlem, battling a wave of stunned New Yorkers shuffling downtown and occasionally getting picked off when they make an inadvertent sound.

It gradually becomes clear that Samira’s former home is in Harlem and her determination to get herself a slice from her favorite pizzeria has deep personal significance from a happier time in her life.

Seeing New York swarming with vicious monsters — scrambling over buildings and leaving giant gashes in their walls, while the streets are lined with burning car wrecks and destroyed storefronts — makes a big impression.