It’s been a good couple of years for horror. Lately, we’ve been treated to “The Babadook”, “Oculus”, “The Witch”, “Bone Tomahawk”, “Green Room” and “Evil Dead”, the last being a superb remake of the 1981 classic by Sam Raimi by up and coming director, Fede Alvarez.
It is Mr. Alvarez that we also have to thank for “Don’t Breathe” - one of the more unique and concisely written and directed horror films that I’ve seen.
The story is simple but original: three down on their luck youths decide to rob a local blind man who is rumored to be sitting on a boatload of cash inside his rundown yet fortified house.
Of course, that isn’t the whole story. Not only does this man turns out to be very capable but he’s got a secret and a reason for being so reclusive.
It isn’t long before our three, well, antagonists, Rocky, Money, and Alex discover that they are in for way more than they bargained for.
From the moment the robbery begins, “Don’t Breathe” has you doing just that: I caught myself holding my breath more than a few times during the film’s hour and a half runtime. The pacing never slows down and does an awesome job at never letting you relax. While there are jump scares in the movie, they aren’t overused or tiresome and the real frights come from the atmosphere and the situation.
The acting is solid and, as I hinted at above, the movie has no real protagonist; every character is flawed and you have a hard time deciding who to root for.
Now, I need to talk about the twist in the movie. I need to talk about it because it’s the one thing which I felt could have been done better.
Spoilers after the image.
Spoilers after the image.
In the third act, it’s revealed that the woman who killed the blind man’s daughter (and who paid him his large settlement to avoid jail time) is in fact alive and chained up in his basement. He’s keeping her alive for a very specific reason - so that she can make up for her tragic mistake and give him another child.
When this woman is accidentally killed, he decides that Rocky is to take her place. It’s not long before we’re watching him warm up a turkey baster’s worth of his own semen which he plans on injecting into her.
This is what took me out of the movie a bit. Not his plan really, but just how fast he began to implement it. The man has bodies which are rotting upstairs. Dude, I know you’re in a hurry but it’s not like a couple of hours is going to make a difference.
I felt like this aspect of the film would have been much better and much creeper if he simply detailed his plans rather than immediately acting on them. But then, we wouldn’t have the super gross out moment so . . . alright?
Forgiving that one issue that I have, I found this movie to be throughly enjoyable; definitely worthy of joining the ranks of the great horror films that have come out in the last couple of years.
Rating: 8/10
