Don't Breathe
Movie Review
It’s been a hell of a year for horror films, not only at the box office, but quality-wise as well. For me, Lights Out is an instant classic that rivals classic 80’s films in the genre like The Thing (1982), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and the like, and now comes Don’t Breathe, from Fede Alvarez, whose underappreciated Evil Dead (2013) remake I really enjoyed, and Don’t Breathe is even better with a good amount of likeable protagonists and a great villain and premise. There’s lots to talk about here, so let’s get going.
We’ll start with a pretty great premise: a group of young thieves plan a heist on an old blind army veteran, and while the kids have some slick moves, they messed with the wrong old blind guy, and he slowly stalks and attacks the intruders as they try and survive the night. And of course, the best way for him to find them, as they discover, is him hearing their breathing, so as the title suggests, if you want to stay alive, don’t breathe. It’s a great story and one that I’m sure some sleazy, low-budget, direct to DVD horror directors will try to cash in on in the following months and years. Next we’ll have a deaf old woman being preyed upon by a group of teens. They’ll call it Don’t Look or something. Anyways, another element I quite liked was the cast. With leading lady Jane Levy, an Evil Dead alum and Dylan Minnette playing two of the intruding teens, both were phenomenal in their roles, and Daniel Zovatto plays the third intruder, the one you love to hate and hope gets caught by the blind man. Speaking of which, the most layered and brilliant performance definitely is Stephen Lang as the army vet, who has more than just home security in mind when it comes to getting rid of his intruders. I’ll leave it at that.
One of my favorite parts of Lights Out was the likeability of the main characters. Don’t Breathe doesn’t succeed quite as well in this field, but it does come pretty damn close. We see that for Levy’s character, Rocky, the breaking and entering, and of course theft, is not just her acting out, it’s a way out of Detroit for her and her sister. Minnette’s character we cheer for a bit as well, seeing as his involvement is all about being with Rocky, who he likes, in spite of the illegal acts they are performing. And at first we understand why the army vet is going as far as he is; the poor man is blind, lost his family and is pretty much living on what little he gets. As we get more into his character, though, we discover that we actually shouldn’t cheer for him too hard, and that perhaps he’s more diabolical than he leads on. I won’t say much more, but those who have seen the film know what I’m talking about. So the shifting perspective of who is the true hero of the story is fun and unexpected, and I enjoyed this aspect very much. Also for a horror/thriller, I have to say that the film actually made me jump at times. Anytime this happens I have to give credit to the director or whoever it is that’s responsible. I’ve seen every last trick in the book when it comes to horror films, so if I get jumpy or freaked out, you’ve got something pretty good.
Now I do have to say that for the most part, I am willing to suspend my disbelief for most horror films. Like really, how does Jason keep going after all these years, or how does Michael Myers survive the initial fall in Halloween (1978) and the endings of all the sequels? But anyways, from the start Don’t Breathe is set up to be a pretty realistic thriller, so by the end when the characters have gone through as much as they have, I’m surprised their brains aren’t mush or they haven’t bled out. In particular all the blows to the head and falls and injuries one of the intruders suffers, I won’t spoil which one, I’m surprised they’re not a vegetable by the end of the film. It almost felt like the R-rated Home Alone (1990) by the last fifteen minutes. It is such a persistent problem for me that by the end I was distracted from the last chase scenes. Now if we revealed halfway through the film that one of the intruders, the one that takes all the blows, was a ghost or something, I would have been fine because they could make that work within the horror genre, but since it is a realistic setting with a realistic set-up and story, it went just a bit too far for me. While this sounds like a small complaint, it affected me enough to take a couple of points.
With that exception, Don’t Breate is well shot, executed, and also well-written and offers a great entertainment for those out there looking for a good thrill or scare. I really hope that Alvarez gets some good gigs following the amazing box office performance of the film, because he certainly earned it after Evil Dead and now he’s overdue for a big shot, unless of course he doesn’t want one and is fine where he’s at. Either way he’s become one of the more dependable horror directors of the day and I sure hope there’s a lot more when Don’t Breathe came from.
Movie Rating : 8/10
Credit : http://www.movie-blogger.com/
Movie Review
It’s been a hell of a year for horror films, not only at the box office, but quality-wise as well. For me, Lights Out is an instant classic that rivals classic 80’s films in the genre like The Thing (1982), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and the like, and now comes Don’t Breathe, from Fede Alvarez, whose underappreciated Evil Dead (2013) remake I really enjoyed, and Don’t Breathe is even better with a good amount of likeable protagonists and a great villain and premise. There’s lots to talk about here, so let’s get going.
We’ll start with a pretty great premise: a group of young thieves plan a heist on an old blind army veteran, and while the kids have some slick moves, they messed with the wrong old blind guy, and he slowly stalks and attacks the intruders as they try and survive the night. And of course, the best way for him to find them, as they discover, is him hearing their breathing, so as the title suggests, if you want to stay alive, don’t breathe. It’s a great story and one that I’m sure some sleazy, low-budget, direct to DVD horror directors will try to cash in on in the following months and years. Next we’ll have a deaf old woman being preyed upon by a group of teens. They’ll call it Don’t Look or something. Anyways, another element I quite liked was the cast. With leading lady Jane Levy, an Evil Dead alum and Dylan Minnette playing two of the intruding teens, both were phenomenal in their roles, and Daniel Zovatto plays the third intruder, the one you love to hate and hope gets caught by the blind man. Speaking of which, the most layered and brilliant performance definitely is Stephen Lang as the army vet, who has more than just home security in mind when it comes to getting rid of his intruders. I’ll leave it at that.
We’ll start with a pretty great premise: a group of young thieves plan a heist on an old blind army veteran, and while the kids have some slick moves, they messed with the wrong old blind guy, and he slowly stalks and attacks the intruders as they try and survive the night. And of course, the best way for him to find them, as they discover, is him hearing their breathing, so as the title suggests, if you want to stay alive, don’t breathe. It’s a great story and one that I’m sure some sleazy, low-budget, direct to DVD horror directors will try to cash in on in the following months and years. Next we’ll have a deaf old woman being preyed upon by a group of teens. They’ll call it Don’t Look or something. Anyways, another element I quite liked was the cast. With leading lady Jane Levy, an Evil Dead alum and Dylan Minnette playing two of the intruding teens, both were phenomenal in their roles, and Daniel Zovatto plays the third intruder, the one you love to hate and hope gets caught by the blind man. Speaking of which, the most layered and brilliant performance definitely is Stephen Lang as the army vet, who has more than just home security in mind when it comes to getting rid of his intruders. I’ll leave it at that.
One of my favorite parts of Lights Out was the likeability of the main characters. Don’t Breathe doesn’t succeed quite as well in this field, but it does come pretty damn close. We see that for Levy’s character, Rocky, the breaking and entering, and of course theft, is not just her acting out, it’s a way out of Detroit for her and her sister. Minnette’s character we cheer for a bit as well, seeing as his involvement is all about being with Rocky, who he likes, in spite of the illegal acts they are performing. And at first we understand why the army vet is going as far as he is; the poor man is blind, lost his family and is pretty much living on what little he gets. As we get more into his character, though, we discover that we actually shouldn’t cheer for him too hard, and that perhaps he’s more diabolical than he leads on. I won’t say much more, but those who have seen the film know what I’m talking about. So the shifting perspective of who is the true hero of the story is fun and unexpected, and I enjoyed this aspect very much. Also for a horror/thriller, I have to say that the film actually made me jump at times. Anytime this happens I have to give credit to the director or whoever it is that’s responsible. I’ve seen every last trick in the book when it comes to horror films, so if I get jumpy or freaked out, you’ve got something pretty good.
Now I do have to say that for the most part, I am willing to suspend my disbelief for most horror films. Like really, how does Jason keep going after all these years, or how does Michael Myers survive the initial fall in Halloween (1978) and the endings of all the sequels? But anyways, from the start Don’t Breathe is set up to be a pretty realistic thriller, so by the end when the characters have gone through as much as they have, I’m surprised their brains aren’t mush or they haven’t bled out. In particular all the blows to the head and falls and injuries one of the intruders suffers, I won’t spoil which one, I’m surprised they’re not a vegetable by the end of the film. It almost felt like the R-rated Home Alone (1990) by the last fifteen minutes. It is such a persistent problem for me that by the end I was distracted from the last chase scenes. Now if we revealed halfway through the film that one of the intruders, the one that takes all the blows, was a ghost or something, I would have been fine because they could make that work within the horror genre, but since it is a realistic setting with a realistic set-up and story, it went just a bit too far for me. While this sounds like a small complaint, it affected me enough to take a couple of points.
With that exception, Don’t Breate is well shot, executed, and also well-written and offers a great entertainment for those out there looking for a good thrill or scare. I really hope that Alvarez gets some good gigs following the amazing box office performance of the film, because he certainly earned it after Evil Dead and now he’s overdue for a big shot, unless of course he doesn’t want one and is fine where he’s at. Either way he’s become one of the more dependable horror directors of the day and I sure hope there’s a lot more when Don’t Breathe came from.
Movie Rating : 8/10
