A 2016 horror movie about three thieves who break into a blind man’s house in the hopes of leaving with a large amount of cash, only to find that the man isn’t as helpless as he seems.
Directed by Fede Alvarez. Produced by Fede Alvarez, Sam Raimi, and Robert Tapert. Written by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. Starring Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto, and Stephen Lang.
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Don’t Breathe has a solid opening. It does enough to tell you about the trio of thieves and set the scene without using up too much of its time. We are given just enough to not want anything to happened to these characters. You’ll like and root for at least one of the trio.
The movie does a solid job of creating an atmosphere. It does this in many ways. With the lack of light (or minimal light), the ambience and music, and the way the cameras move. There’s a lot of moments where the camera will shift and suddenly there will be a character standing there or something will have changed.
Throughout the tension builds well. Just like the characters, there are times where you feel like you can finally take a breath, but it never lasts long. There’s always a moment with a sudden change and you’re left holding your breath. Really the title suits the movie in a number of ways.
The fact that it is only about an hour and a half works in its favour. A lot can happen in that time, but it also doesn’t feel like enough. Both things can put you on edge. There are a lot of twists and turns that happen, and with no possible way to predict the outcome (or due to the fact that every time you seem to think one thing something always changes it), you never know how or when it’s going to start reaching the conclusion (or final scenes). I’m not saying it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen, but the movie does a very good of make it all as unpredictable as possible.
If you like horrors, or you simply just want something for the Halloween season, then this is a great movie! There was a never a point where I wanted to turn it off, and I was constantly intrigued, finding it hard to look away, even when I knew something might jump out at me.
There’s not much more I can say about this movie without giving things away! I thoroughly enjoyed it and I don’t think I’ve seen anything else like it before. Yes, some factors are typical for horror movies and/or aren’t anything new, but it was still interesting. I think it does deserve the hype it gets and I believe it to be a must see.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
wonderoes 