Suspenseful, thrilling and anxiety-inducing: Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe” is one of the most intense horror movies of the year.
The film starts off slow and may leave the viewer wondering when the scary stuff comes in. While the movie is replete with plenty of “jump scares” as it progresses, fans of the thriller and horror genres are likely to find the storyline interesting enough, and certainly easy to follow.
Alex (Daniel Zavatto), Rocky (Jane Levy) and Money (Daniel Minette) are three young house robbers and close friends living in Detroit with their eyes set on California. Money and Rocky are a couple, while poor Alex wishes for Rocky’s love, breaking the hearts of all romantic viewers.
Money scopes out a new house-target: the home of an old Gulf War veteran (Stephen Lang) in a remote part of town. The man is believed to have a huge settlement left over after a car crash that killed his only child – oh, and he just so happens to be blind due to a war injury, too. But what these idiots fail to understand is that blindness does not equate to weakness.
As soon as the thieves arrive at the site, they have to deal with the unnamed blind man’s vicious guard dog and the blind man himself. Because he cannot see, all of his other senses are extremely heightened.
It soon becomes apparent that these kids are totally messing with the wrong guy. Not only that, but they also discover he’s hiding something more than cold hard cash in his home.
The dialogue isn’t anything spectacular, but there cannot be much talking in a blind man’s home when you’re trying to steal his loot. In fact, there is a bit too much at some points.
Dennis Harvey from Variety describes the action in the house as a “cat-and-mouse game” with plenty of chasing and catching. Called a “slow roll of dread” by The Guardian film critic James Hoffman, the surprise ending of the film is sure to leave movie-goers with one simple thought: WTF.
Expect a Don’t Breathe 2 in the future.
