Directed by Fede Alvarez
Written by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues
Cast: Stephen Lang, Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto
Soundtrack: Roque Baños
Fede Alvarez got off to a bit of a rough start with the horror crowd, going down in history as the director of the disappointing ‘Evil Dead’ remake (which I never saw, but frankly I don’t have much love for the originals, so whatever), but I think it’s safe to say his second directorial feature is an improvement.
Taking a page from the Alfred Hitchcock playbook, Alvarez and writing partner Rodo Sayagues dispense with the usual good-versus-evil character tropes in favor of something more ambiguous. A small crew of Detroit-area thieves get a hot tip from their local fence about an easy mark: a blind war veteran who lives alone in a nearly abandoned part of town. Sensing the opportunity to make a life-changing score, the trio break in and start looking for their prize, but, of course, things don’t go as planned, and their prey turns out to be every bit the predator.
It’s a relatively simple story with a small cast, so you might expect anybody with a film crew and a dream could pull it off, but make no mistake, without strong performances and critical execution, ‘Don’t Breathe’ would miserably fail. Fortunately, Stephen Lang is more than up to the challenge as the blind man, fully committing to the role to the point of actually playing things out without sight. On the other side, Jane Levy and Dylan Minnette are fine young actors themselves, and do a good job of selling the fear.
In terms of maintaining tension, the movie revels in the details, not unlike a hard space movie where any little thing going wrong has serious consequences. Under most circumstances, it probably would be easy to escape from a blind guy’s house, but when he’s got combat training, a firearm, and knows his home infinitely better than you do, suddenly it becomes very difficult, and that’s really where ‘Don’t Breathe’ succeeds.
Surprisingly, it’s not super gory in terms of violence, which you might expect from Fede Alvarez after ‘Evil Dead’, but the movie goes to some dark, dark places (no pun intended), and there’s one surprise in particular that earns the movie a definitive hard R-rating.
Overall, ‘Don’t Breathe’ is such a solid film that I’m tempted to overrate it, but I won’t. In certain ways it compares to ‘Green Room‘, in that little things become very important, but it didn’t quite move me the same, so I can’t give it the same rating.
If you’re looking for a good horror fix this weekend, ‘Don’t Breathe’ should satiate you (although if you haven’t seen ‘Hell or High Water‘ or ‘Star Trek Beyond‘ yet, I definitely recommend those).
Rating: ★★★½