how the newspaper clippings say the aliens are impervious to weapons but a common 12-gauge takes care of them without issue.

The feedback effect made their skull armor plating go all haywire, thus exposing the soft mushy interiors and opening them up to get blasted.

It's revealed in the newspaper clippings that scientists already know they hunt by sound...but nobody ever tried fucking with frequencies before? This is technology that already exists and not a single person tried it? I also don't buy that a bunker buster, .50 cal anti-tank round, or setting them on fire wouldn't work but a 12-gauge could.

The newspaper headlines specifically exist to relay the backstory of the family's situation. Doing so is actually a wonderful way of doing so, as the characters then must treat their world as real and that aids in the suspension of disbelief more than words can properly express. Several of those headlines allude to the aliens' invulnerability, and one even outright says that their weapons do not work.

Not that their numbers are too great (as is the case for most zombie apocalypse movies), not that their technology is too far advanced (as seen in nearly every alien invasion movie), but that humanity's collective weaponry did not work. If these creatures were such a vast threat there would be no logical reason for a government to not exercise every available option, up to and including nuclear strikes and chemical warfare. This idea is touched on in the very underrated Edge of Tomorrow and even in Pacific Rim, not to mention the originator of nearly every alien invasion trope, HG Wells' The War of the Worlds. The idea is that we are facing an enemy so beyond our comprehension and abilities to defend ourselves, either through technological advancement or sheer numbers, that we are the underdog.

This, by itself, is fine. It's a standard trope in the "alien invasion" sub-genre. Where it becomes insulting, however, is in how the movie is trying to say that a farmer family discovers how to kill it using existing technology when the various militaries of the world and scientists collectively have not. Remember, it's not expressed that the aliens have overrun the area before a working counter-offensive could be mounted, it is said that WE CANNOT KILL THEM, so when their weakness becomes something that is so common (infrasound) that it is used in devices which are sold in hardware stores and pharmacies as basic pest repellent? I cry foul. That's dumb on a level that's near the twist in Signs to me.

"Buckshot and loud noises, my only weaknesses, how did you know?!"

If the father had been trying to find the right frequency to stave them off instead of making his daughter's hearing aid work? I'd think differently. I even like the theme of the movie, that silence (particularly of women) to surrounding atrocities only prolongs their existence, but I feel the execution came across as lazy. It seems like any slow movie with an even halfway decent concept is heralded as a masterpiece these days after years of garbage left, right, and center, but I don't think A Quiet Place did anything particularly great.