DON’T BREATHE – Review

With a minimum of narrative set-up, the home invasion thriller DON’T BREATHE hammers away with a harrowing scenario that will connect with anyone who has spent time in a dark house alone. Ruthless in its intensity and single-minded in its purpose, this is a first-rate genre exercise with a perfectly-cast Stephen Lang as its central villain. It’s a bit disappointing that EVIL DEAD director Fede Alvarez couldn’t match his bravura execution of the material with a little more depth, but when DON’T BREATHE works, which it often does, it’s hard to complain.

DON’T BREATHE centers on a trio of burglars; young single mom Rocky (Jane Levy), her hooligan beau Money (Daniel Zovatto), and Alex (Dylan Minnette), who pilfers house keys from his dad’s security firm so they can rob the homes of his clients. At first they stick to swiping items instead of cash to dodge more serious charges if they’re caught, but when Money hears about a helpless old blind dude sitting on a six-figure cash settlement after his daughter was run over and killed by the daughter of a wealthy family, they decide to go for some dough. While their target (Lange), who resides in a particularly shabby area of Detroit, may be sightless, he’s far from defenseless. His house is heavily reinforced, his drooling Rottweiler would love to tear someone to pieces, and he may not be ‘home alone’ after all. Victim becomes predator and it’s a long deadly night for the trio who soon realize they picked the wrong house to rob.

Alvarez displays an impressive mastery of camera movement, framing, and editing that turns every almost scene in DON’T BREATHE into a nerve-fraying exercise. The director gooses the audience with the soundtrack, which wavers from silent stretches to nerve-wracking atmospheric sounds (gunshots, a burglar alarm). DON’T BREATHE is relentless, with plenty of jump-in-your-seat moments usually abetted by shrieking music. It’s nothing new but when done this well it’s effective. Alvarez uses darkness for long stretches, I guess to establish the sensory experience of a blind man though the many scenes set in almost pitch blackness, illuminated only by the occasional gunshot, may be too unnerving for some. DON’T BREATHE leaves a lot of questions hanging, many involving a surprise fifth character’s involvement that doesn’t make much sense. There are no supernatural elements to the story (except that farfetched moment when the Detroit PD shows up in this crappy neighborhood mere minutes after a 911 call!) but Alvarez establishes Lang’s The Blind Man (as he’s credited) as a classic horror movie boogeyman. He has extraordinary strength and stays a step ahead of his prey, able to suddenly pop up when least expected. DON’T BREATHE makes it easy to root for the villain. A war vet we’re told was blinded by a grenade in Iraq and who’s lost a daughter generates plenty of sympathy especially while protecting his home from a trio of crooks. Even the midway twist revealing secrets he’s hiding seems more misguided than depraved. “I’m no rapist!” he insists while wielding a semen-filled turkey baster  – the most revolting horror movie armament since Grampa’s poopy diaper in THE VISIT! The film’s ace is the terrific physical performance from Stephen Lang. Best known as Colonel Quaritch in AVATAR, Lang has always displayed ferocious intensity even in non-villain roles dating back to LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. We’re effectively introduced to The Blind Man suddenly sitting up in bed while a TV playing home movies of his daughter runs nearby. With his muscle shirt, facial hair, and scarred eyes, Lang cuts a frightening figure but doesn’t overdo it and keeps things real. While none of the young actors make much of an impression with weak and unlikable characters, I still wish there had more of them to kill. I want a sequel! Heck, put ‘The Blind Man’ in the next SUICIDE SQUAD movie….with his dog Cujo and that turkey baster, he’d the most impressive villain on the screen!

4 of 5 Stars