Checked out the new reverse home invasion movie Don’t Breath, an insanely tense suspense horror movie. Three burglars break into a blind Iraqi war veteran’s isolated home, intent on stealing his stack of cash. Unlike most movies of this kind, the homeowner is a brick wall, a walking monster of anger and the burglars quickly become the victims. There’s a twist that comes relatively early that it would have been cool if the trailers hadn’t spoiled (dammit) but, if you’ve seen that trailer, there’s plenty more to the story to surprise and shock you.
The ratcheting tension in this movie is incredible. The homeowner – played Stephen Lang (the bad guy in Avatar) – does so much with his physicality and only a small handful of dialog to become a terrifying threat. The movie has a great use of sound since our protagonists have to remain quiet or the blind guy who knows the lay of the land will hear and come at them with his gun, his hammer, and his dog. There aren’t cheap jump scares – the jump scares are earned and the suspense is intense. The characters all do smart things to remain alive and I’m talking the good guys and the bad guys.
Amusingly, the movie is set in a house isolated from other people so the burglars think it’ll be an easy hit. Where is this isolated home so far from civilization? In the country? Nope. On an abandoned block in Detroit, surrounded by other decaying houses and abandoned factories. So even when our heroes escape the house, there’s something very eerie and creepy about the realization there ain’t anyone around to help even though they are surrounded by homes (covered in weeds and falling apart but still).
The movie is directed Fedy Alvarez whose last movie was 2013’s surprisingly good remake of The Evil Dead. This is his second full length movie and I wish he’d work more. This isn’t nearly as intensely gory as that movie was – it better earns its scares without relying on splatter. We need to get away from these cheap, generic predictable flicks and get more like this. Also, hey, produced by Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert so that’s some familiar names to horror (and Spider-Man) fans.
I highly recommend this film if you like a good white-knuckles suspense film that’s shot well by a man who knows what makes a good, legitimately scary movie. It’s well acted, well crafted, and well written. Really dug this one.
Score: 88