Don't Breathe - Cinema Review

If you had told me that Don't Breathe was adapted from a low-budget indie short film I'd be inclined to believe you. From the simple premise to the mere twelve character cast (if you include a dog) It has the feel of something far removed from typical studio released horror or scare-based thriller films. It seems this was director Fede Alvarez' exact intention, following his successful 2013 Evil Dead reboot with something of smaller scale and budget, achieving less studio interference in the process.

The film's plot follows three young burglars hoping to steal enough money to escape their dead-end lives in Detroit. The film spends just enough time on backstory to get us emotionally invested in at least one of these characters, with the most time devoted to Rocky (Jane Levy) followed by Alex (Dylan Minnette) and the aptly named "Money" (Daniel Zovatto).

They set their sights on the house of an old blind war veteran (Stephen Lang) whose daughter was killed in a car accident and received a huge amount of money in a court settlement. They attempt to break into his home and naturally everything goes to hell. There's really very little more to the plot than that, aside from a few later twists I don't want to spoil but I'll just say, there's an interesting dynamic of morality between all the characters and their motivations.

This simple set-up allows every scene to breathe (no I wasn't trying to do a thing there) and for a really effective natural build up of tension. I'm not a fan of frequent cheap jump-scares and there are some jump-scares in this movie but with the aforementioned tension expertly achieved in other ways as well as them they're not nearly as annoying or disengaging as many other film. I think almost all of them serve some actual purpose in the plot rather than a tacked on jack-in-the-box scenario where a group of violinists all abruptly trip over at the end.

Stephen Lang gives a mesmerising and chilling performance as the unpredictable and unstable blind man whilst the film's writing deftly avoids most horror cliches giving a natural progression to events without you internally screaming at the characters for their hopelessly stupid and unmotivated decisions. As you can imagine silence plays a large part in the film but when the soundtrack is involved it's still effective and purposeful. In terms of lighting and cinematography there also aren't ludicrously dark environments (even if they're pitch-black for the characters) and you aren't always craning your neck waiting for an awkward camera angle to shift.

The film is technically a pure thriller in that there's no supernatural elements to the story. I hope you don't consider that a spoiler but it has been stated by the director himself so I'll take the risk talking about it. I found this really refreshing to see as the film strikes the perfect balance of utilising fear and suspense from real world situations but without becoming mundane in its pursuit of realism.

The only fault I can really mention against the film is perhaps its latter half continuing for too long. This is really nitpicking though and at a run-time of 88 minutes I feel a bit dumb even mentioning it. Nevertheless it may be applicable to some viewers as horror/thrillers work best at shorter durations.

A simple and engaging story with good performances carried by brilliantly crafted scenes full of thick tension, means I would highly recommend Don't Breathe as a great film on its own merits and a breath of fresh air for horror and thriller fans (I did mean to do a thing that time).