Hold Your Breath is a generic title for a movie with an interesting, unique, and rarely mentioned time in American history… and with (the potential for) a unique villain <glances suspiciously at the dust I haven’t cleaned off my tv stand in a bit>.

The film takes place during the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s… a time when farms dried up due to drought and over-planting of the land. A mother (played by Sarah Paulson) and her children try to survive the dust storms and dead crops… and a mysterious Grey Man who may be living in the dust itself.

This film beats all through sheer atmosphere. Depicting the desiccated sand nightmare of the dying land feels like an existential nightmare. The idea of being trapped indoors with a howling storm and where stepping out could get you hopelessly lost and/or dead from exposure.

The way the film creates this dust-ridden atmosphere is fantastic. The level of isolation and paranoia works, especially when the camera lingers on a few motes of dust floating in the air. It’s not so much scary as it is unenviable and desperate. A creeping desperation where any clear sky is just an interval between the dust.

Sarah Paulson is very good, as usual. As I watched her though, I wondered if starring in this film just feels like another outing with Ryan Murphy. In other words, I hope she’s getting job satisfaction after playing so many desperate women in horror shows. And what the difference, if any, there is between this flick and a season of American Horror Story. If it matters. Which it probably doesn’t.

I was unsure about my feelings about the finale as the question of what’s really going on emerges. Will we see the infamous Gray Man or is all this a symptom of isolation and storms? I’m on the fence as to the decision in the end but not to how it ends. I was quite satisfied with its bleak finale.

This is a good film that hits on all dust-flooded cylinders if you like your horror more atmospheric than outright scary. Its got tension that builds for sure, but its more that creeping dread that makes it work.

Score: 82