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Don’t Breathe follows three young people in modern-day Detroit, Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minette), and Money (Daniel Zovalto), delinquents who make some extra cash by breaking into people’s homes and stealing their stuff. Rocky, living in the worst conditions possible with an alcoholic mother and either a daughter or younger sister to take care of (did I also mention she lives in freaking Detroit?), is desperate to leave and take her daughter/sister with her to a better life in California. In order to pony up the cash to do this, the three friends decide to rob the house of an old blind man (Stephen Lang) who lives in an abandoned part of the city. Things quickly get screwy as the blind man turns out to be more dangerous than expected, and the three have to try and elude him and escape his home with their lives.
I wasn’t a fan of director Fede Alvarez’s last film, the remake of Evil Dead, which I thought was just a little too dumb for my taste and a disservice to the original. However, with Don’t Breathe he has fully redeemed himself by bringing us an incredibly well-crafted piece of tension. Most of the film takes place inside of this one house, and there are several clever design tricks that he uses to build suspense. The camera lingers on little things the kids do, like leaving their shoes by the door, and the sound of things like creaky floorboards and breathing is turned up just enough to be noticeable, making us feel like they're making a big mistake. Every time one of these characters made a stray sound I got nervous, waiting for the man to come around the corner. The camerawork is also pretty amazing, with some great cinematography being employed in such a small, claustrophobic space. There is one long tracking shot early in the film of the characters exploring the house that I marveled at, and I would love to see how Alvarez pulled it off.
The blind man is the film’s greatest selling point, as he is absolutely terrifying in every aspect. He may be blind, but he’s clearly been in some combat and is very imposing. His senses have been heightened (sometimes realistically, sometimes borderline Daredevil), making every stray breath or sound a beacon for him to follow. Stephen Lang rarely speaks in the film, but his body language is that of a furious animal, tilting his head when he hears noise and even smelling certain objects like he’s hunting down prey. His knowledge of his own house and the fact that he can maneuver without his sight makes him a very unique type of threat, though he is still vulnerable in the way humans are, especially blind humans. He might pop out of a corner, but if you’re not in his direct path and can move away quietly, he won’t spot you. Alvarez makes every moment with the blind man count, and Lang's performance makes him one of recent horror's most unique antagonists.
I feel like this movie is being a bit misleading, because while it has all the trappings of a horror film, I really find it to be more of a thriller. Alvarez wisely presents two equally sympathetic but also equally despicable camps for this film, presenting us with insight into both Rocky and the blind man’s lives and pasts. While things do get twisted, there is never a moment where I lost sympathy for the blind man even when I found what he was doing disturbing. This man has had injustice after injustice done to him, and as far as we know at the beginning he’s just a man defending his home from some punk invaders. The three kids are all written very broadly but for some reason it works in this film, somehow making us root for them despite the fact that we barely know them. Don’t let the jump scares or the camera tricks or the slasher-like tendencies that the blind man has fool you, folks: this film goes straight into thriller territory and never looks back.
I only have one real complaint with this film, and it’s that I feel like the ending is way too dragged out. There are lots of false endings, with many in my audience even feeling like the film was about to wrap up before the film yanked us back in with something else. This can work in some films, but here I felt like it was a little too forced, like the director was just trying to pad out the run time and add in some more scares. Because of this the film isn’t as tight as it should be right at the time where it needs to stick its landing. However, I did like the very end, so I guess that makes up for it.
There’s a few things in the YMMV category that I want to point out before I give my rating. Those who don’t like jump scares will probably not be happy with this film. I usually hate jump scares, but I thought that the filmmaking was used as a cue for the blind man’s next appearance, and there are several traditional scares that actually build a sense of dread rather than a sense of being startled (like this year’s Lights Out, which I reviewed here). Others might not like how little development the kids get, but I would argue that Green Room, an excellent little thriller, does the same thing and makes it work just as much as this does, The last thing is that some people might not like the ending to this film and find it cheap, but as I already discussed I disagree with that. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s an ambiguous ending that I think will divide audiences.
Horror movies have been undergoing a bit of a creative resurgence over the past few years, and 2016 has produced several intriguing ones so far. However, no other year has given me more than one horror film that I absolutely love, and Don’t Breathe definitely fits that category (the other being the absolutely wonderful The Witch). I sat dumbfounded as the credits rolled, not because of anything wrong with the film, but because I was just so amazed at how good it was. This is one of my favorite movies of the year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it winds up on my Top 10 list. It’s that good, guys, and you need to check it out ASAP.
My Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Don’t Breathe is in theaters now.
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