REVIEW: DON’T BREATHE Is Suspenseful from Start to Finish!
Raves
Rants
A horror genre can’t be complete without scaring its audience off the edge of their seat, and Evil Dead director Fede Alvarez is back with his latest film, Don’t Breathe. Don’t Breathe follows a group of young, seasoned thieves who broke into wealthy people’s homes, one day, they decided to pursue a blind man’s home […]
A horror genre can’t be complete without scaring its audience off the edge of their seat, and Evil Dead director Fede Alvarez is back with his latest film, Don’t Breathe.
Don’t Breathe follows a group of young, seasoned thieves who broke into wealthy people’s homes, one day, they decided to pursue a blind man’s home but things didn’t go easy as they expected as their target happen to be a seasoned war veteran.
The film’s heist narrative worked so well with the horror genre because of the psychological aspect and there’s also the fear projecting on the three thieves Alex (Jane Levy), Rocky (Dylan Minette) and Money (Daniel Zovatto) especially with their expression and exploring the blind man’s home there’s also the eerie and unsettling feel about it, the camera explores the interiors in a claustrophobic manner that allows the audience to immerse on the heist as well and accompanied by real-time sound effects that slowly build up a great amount of suspense.
While the film puts on the edge of your seat throughout, the storytelling falters on the lack of the characters’ depth and their motivations such as coming from a low-income home or troubled family has been used and there’s nothing deeper than that. Also, I think it would’ve been more interesting to explore on their gray area to justify their actions.
Stephen Lang is definitely a force to be reckoned with, his performance as the blind man makes the film’s title speak for itself connecting the audience with fear, Lang’s body of work shows a great amount of relentlessness and brutality in spite of the character’s disability and doesn’t define it as his weakness, he breaks loose and hunts down the leads like food but there’s also a nuanced sadness inside him that adds the humanity.
While the story isn’t that special or groundbreaking, Don’t Breathe is the perfect viewing experience in the cinema for horror fans who are into thrills and scares.
Special thanks to Columbia Pictures and Magic 89.9 for the invite!