Don't Breathe Review

R: Terror, Violence, Disturbing Content, and Language Including Sexual References

Screen Gems, Ghosthouse Pictures, Good Universe

1 hr and 28 Minutes

Cast: Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, with Stephen Lang and Daniel Zovatto

Rocky, a teenage delinquent living with neglectful parents, promises her younger sister that they will start their own lives together and move away from their dysfunctional family. Looking for the right amount of cash to run away with in order to do so, her boyfriend, Money, convinces her to break into the home of a blind man who supposedly has a safe in the basement. Breaking into the house in the middle of the night with their friend Alex, they discover that the blind man is not as helpless as he seems, and soon find themselves in a game of cat-and-mouse with a man willing and ready to kill all three after having killed Money with his own pistol.

REVIEW: Fede Alvarez, the guy who remade Evil Dead back in 2013 is back with a film that is not even a remake or I wouldn’t classify as a horror film. Don’t Breathe is an original thriller film that from the very synopsis did something that no thriller has ever done; make the antagonist a man with a disability. Even Alvarez said in an interview for comingsoon.net "Sometimes you naturally give them powers and make them more menacing than a normal person, so we thought what if we do the other way around and take his eyes out and make him a blind person.” That is amazing. And from the first trailer it got nearly everyone I knew hooked and ready to check this film out.

THE GOOD: Horror/Thriller movies this year has been having a significant comeback this year. With films from sequels like Conjuring 2 to original films like Green Room, The Witch and Lights Out, these films bring back life into a genre that has been very cloying and generic for the past several years and Don’t Breathe is another attestation to that. With this film you aren’t really fond of the leads from the start. They get out the way to show they’re thieves. Robbing houses from left and right in a nepotistic way thanks to Minnette's character Alex (who is in the friendzone and you feel sorry for him throughout). You do get their motivation (mostly Jane Levy’s) to thieve to get out of Detroit because, who wants to live in Detroit? It’s Detroit. When the film has the thieving trio in the Blind Man’s house that is when the edge of your seat intensity begins.

Don’t Breathe is a crazy of hide and seek (with death) game from beginning to end. From the trailer where you were both engaged and so eager to see the full film because of the setup really delivers on what the trailer said it was to offer. It is everything and actually much much more. Besides the film being a thriller with some horrific elements to it there is also a sense of mystery in the story which leads to something extremely horrific. When you think Alvarez’s Evil Dead will shock you with it’s violence and gore, Don’t Breathe will shock you with its story elements. There is a moment where you genuinely want to puke and it has doesn’t require any acts of violence. It does require a situation that is genuinely horrific in every way shape or form. The violence isn't that graphic and jarring in the level Green Room was, but it is very violent for the most part. 

THE BAD: What is something you hate in horror movies? If you said dumb decisions you are correct. If you said dumb white people decisions you are 100% correct. Its a trope that dates all the way back to Scream where the lead does something simnifically dumb that you’re screaming at the screen. The film mostly centers on Jane Levy who has been an screen enjoyment that can hold her own since Suburgatory and she does several smart things throughout. One involving a sequence with her in a car trying to escape that is intense. But then there are moments where she STOPS in the most dangerous places where you are screaming “BITCH RUN!” Even a white person next to me said“only white people.”

LAST STATEMENT: With genuine thrills and a horrific atmosphere, Don’t Breathe is an edge of your seat heart pounding experience that is originally terrifying and continues the streak of great modern horror cinema.

Rating: 4/5 | 84%

Super Scene: Rocky V. Dog V. Car