Don't Breathe: An Effective, Tense Thriller

You know, I kind of forgot that this movie existed until recently when I saw promotional material for Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus, where he advertised himself as the director for a little film called Don't Breathe. I didn't really pay the little 2016 horror flick much heed at the time of its release, but given that I was staring down the barrel of Romulus, I decided to sit down and give this film a watch. And you know? It wasn't perfect, but for what it was, I found myself really enjoying Don't Breathe on the level of an audience member just as much as I did on the level of a critic. It was tense, it was decently well-acted, and the plot of the film, while nothing outstanding, was well-written and smart for what it was. On top of that, the film was pretty much a classic haunted house film with a modern twist - a nice and effective one at that. For the absolutely tiny $9.9 million budget this film was given (relative to the average Hollywood budget of $65 million), it really had a lot of bang for its buck, and today, I want to talk about it because while yeah, it wasn't perfect, Don't Breathe was a good movie, and I think that it's a horror movie people need to talk about more, especially because it inhabits a genre where hits are the exception to the many misses. In fact, it's been described by a Toronto newspaper as "a home invasion story as artfully terrifying as Home Alone was entertainingly hilarious." Yikes.

For the brief synopsis, Don't Breathe is a 2016 horror flick that follows three burglars from Detroit named Rocky, Alex, and Money. They're doing just fine for themselves....until they decide to break into the home of a blind Gulf War veteran named Norman Nordstrom (portrayed by Stephen Lang, who played the bad guy in Avatar). They quickly find out that old, blind Norman is not all that, er, meets the eye.

The first thing I love about Don't Breathe is that, on a structural level, its ambition never outstrips its limitations. Now, don't hear me say that it's an unambitious film, because that's not true. Its concept turns a familiar trope on its head in some really satisfying ways, but what I mean when I say that the film's ambition never outstrips its limitations is this: this film is a small-scale film that never tries to be a large-scale one. The entirety of Don't Breathe is more or less set in one house, and that one house is more than enough. This movie is less concerned with hiding its imperfections amidst scares or spectacle and more concerned with being intelligent in how it treats even small details, and I really appreciate the film's willingness to put work into the small things of the film that ultimately become pretty important and more and more obviously so the more the film twists and turns. In essence, Alvarez wrote a really great horror villain in the form of Norman Nordstrom, surrounded him with comparatively more-or-less harmless targets, and just let Nordstrom do his thing. It's simple, but it's really dang effective, and it makes for a solid, if relatively unambitious, film that hits high notes on all the basics of screenwriting and directing.

In all honesty, apart from Norman, the characters in the film aren't much to write home about, but overall, the pacing of Don't Breathe is excellent, and the film works well towards its climax, but I think what's especially impressive to see is its surprisingly thorough and intelligent command of scene-to-scene writing. The film is at its very best when it comes to making each individual scene its own individual story with inciting incidents, a problem the protagonists will have to solve, and very often, a twist that throws the scene into unpredictable chaos. Don't Breathe is a masterclass on how to plot and pace a scene, and it's one of the finest examples I've seen of this writing aspect, in the genre of horror or otherwise. Every problem our protagonistic thieves have thrown their way by Norman feels new and unique and wildly different than what came before. One thing that Don't Breathe never feels is monotonous, and I think this is an important trick for a horror movie to pull off because these types of films thrive off of the emotions of the audience, so it's important for a film like this to keep its scares fresh and distinct from each other. And fear not (or fear a lot), this film does that very well. On a macroscopic scale, this film's plot is pretty straightforward and doesn't really stumble in any way, but it's the writing on a microscopic, scene-to-scene level that is the most impressive to see in Don't Breathe.

On a pretty fundamental level, I never found the film to be especially spooky when compared to some other horror films, but it can be pretty disturbing when it wants to be. If you've seen the film, I'm going to say two words, and you're going to have at least a mildly visceral reaction: turkey baster. And if you haven't seen the film, but horror films happen to be your jam, I think you'll get a kick out of this movie, but I'd argue that people who aren't die-hard fans of the genre will probably enjoy Don't Breathe even more. It's a taut, intense, and well-done thriller that never bores, and even if it's not perfect and the small-scale plot that helps it so much also raises some issues in terms of the film's overall ambition, all in all, Don't Breathe plays familiar cards and riffs on said cards in really interesting and entertaining ways. It's a simple film in every sense of the word, and so while it might not have done anything that really wowed me, it never really stumbles in any way narratively either. All of that said, it does contain some pretty straightforward R-rated language and violence and does have one scene of an attempted rape (with no nudity) that I promise is a lot milder than I make it sound here but is nonetheless present in the film. But on a sheer scare level, it's atmospherically nothing compared to something like Longlegs and never introduces any demonic or supernatural elements if those things would, by chance, be off-putting to you (although Don't Breathe can be pretty handy with the jumpscares). And on a critical one, it's a piece I really liked, a lot more than most horror films I watched, and overall, it's a tight, well-written, and interesting watch that may or may not be tainted by the sequel whenever I get around to watching Don't Breathe 2. In a lot of ways, I'm even more interested to see what Alvarez did with Alien Romulus now that I've seen some of his filmography, which I was previously entirely unfamilair with. I'll get a review for Alvarez's Alien film out as soon as I go to watch it, but that might be more complicated than I make it sound here because my junior year of college is just around the corner for me, so my reviews are going to get a lot more infrequent from here on out. But it's been a fun summer with a lot of good movies (and less-than-good movies) to go with it, and I've enjoyed writing these reviews a lot. I'll probably publish a few more articles before I go, but after that, Lord knows where I'm going to go with this blog, and you know what? That's alright. It's been fun for what it's been, and after all, I write this blog because I love writing, and I hope that if you're reading this, you've loved reading it just as much as I loved writing it.

Peace.

Don't Breathe - 8/10

1 Timothy 6:9-10