Screen Gems, Stage 6, Ghost House. Seeing any one of these companies’ logos onscreen before a horror/thriller movie is cause for worry, so seeing all three together should surely be a sign of disaster. Amazingly though, Don’t Breathe is anything but. This is one of the most memorable pictures to hit the genre in quite a while.
Detroiters Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette), and Money (Daniel Zovatto) eke out a living as petty thieves. This is helped mostly by Alex, whose father runs the security company of the homes they pillage and therefore knows the ways to bypass. Rocky is trying to save up to move with her sister Diddy (Emma Bercovici) out of their abusive home, so when the trio learn of a potential big score, she especially jumps at the chance.
To be exact, $300,000 is somewhere in the house of a long-retired Gulf War veteran (Stephen Lang) who received the money as a settlement when his daughter was killed in a car accident. Two things further make the mark attractive to the team: his neighborhood is otherwise all but deserted, and the man is blind. They return at 2 AM, and after some difficulty with his fortified doors and windows manage to break in. But when he awakes, it quickly becomes clear that he’s not trapped there with them, they’re trapped there with him.
Don’t Breathe feels akin to what Clock Tower would be like as a movie. For those unfamiliar, Clock Tower was a slasher video game series where the character controlled was defenseless and stuck in a confined area with a serial killer on their tail who could pop out anywhere at any moment. However evasion was possible by hiding in simple places like bathroom stalls or under a box (this killer was apparently rather simple-minded or just lazy). Similarly, the characters in this film can avoid the blind man if the conditions are reached, only as this antagonist is sharper, these are harder maneuvers to pull off. They need to start out of his immediate path, stand perfectly still, elicit no noises or notable smells, and – here it comes – not breathe.
And just like Clock Tower, the proceedings are fraught with tension and terror. Once the sides are aware of the other’s presence, every moment is riveting. It helps too that each major player has distinct strengths and weaknesses, adding an extra bit of unpredictability to how their interactions will play out.
Levy, in her second collaboration with writer/director Fede Alvarez, remains a talent to watch, again showing as great an aptitude for drama as she has for comedy. But like many a film such as this, it’s the villain who makes the biggest impression. Lang is extraordinary; I’d even say Oscar-worthy. It’s unfortunate that this genre has fallen out of favor with the Academy. Were we still living in the era of Misery and The Silence of the Lambs, he would certainly be in the running. Hopefully the Saturn Awards at least will pay attention.
As I’m sure someone else has probably already put it: Don’t miss Don’t Breathe.
