Every once in a while, a film comes our way that simply fulfills every expectation. Don’t Breathe is one of those films. It’s simple yet extremely well crafted, leaving you on the edge of your seat for an entertainingly efficient ride, clocking in at a perfect 88 minutes. For once, audiences actually understood that they were offered a gem of a horror film, and it was a massive success in theaters. In case you missed it on the sliver screen, Don’t Breathe just released via OnDemand, so now you have no excuse not to see it.
The premise is simple: in an abandoned Detroit neighborhood (quite a fitting location considering what happened yesterday), three friends decide to rob a blind war veteran (played by Stephen Lang) who’s supposedly sitting on half a million dollars. What seems like the perfect plan quickly turns into a fight for survival when it becomes clear the blind man is anything but helpless. To make things worse for the trio, it turns out that the blind man also happens to be rather sadistic. You’ll never look at a turkey baster quite the same way after watching this film.
Don’t Breathe is directed by Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, who was contacted by cult director Sam Raimi after releasing his awesome short film Ataque de Panico in 2009. Raimi made him an offer any man in his right mind would refuse, but Alvarez agreed to remake Evil Dead anyways. Obviously, Raimi had a good feeling and knew what he was doing when he hired Alvarez. The remake was surprisingly good, stirring away from the comedic elements of the original and instead going for pure balls to the walls horror.
Alvarez, teaming up again with Raimi as his producer, proves that he’s a director to be counted on. Instead of giving us a generic slasher film like so many directors would, Don't Breathe is a great thriller, filled with many small twists and turns. The characters feel real, the situations feel tense and the scenes feel new. Judging by this flick, modern horror films are not dead, and others such as Hush (definitely one to watch as well) directed by Mike Flanagan prove it even more. Let’s hope they keep on coming because we’d much rather be terrified at the movies than by switching on the news.
