Don’t Breathe
(2016)
(SPOILERS) I passed on Fede Alvarez’ The Evil Dead remake – it seemed a tad too close to torture porn for my tastes, and besides, why redo Evil Dead if you’re eschewing a sense of humour; it’s what made it what it is – so this home invasion thriller in reverse is my first exposure to his work (he also has a new Lisbeth Salander movie, baffling rebooting the series with the fourth instalment, and a remake of Labyrinth on his to-do list). Don’t Breathe is okay, effective within its highly exploitative bracket, rarely doing anything but serviceably pushing obvious shock buttons.
I’ve seen reviews complain about the rape subplot herein –
some even seem to think the Blind Man’s defence of “I’m not a rapist” is a representation of the views of the
filmmakers, and that it thus needs emphasising that he is, in fact, which rather suggest a desire to be outraged than ends
up making them look a bit dim – but it
seems to me to go with the generally dubious territory of this kind of horror movie,
and it’s just batshit crazy enough in conception, with, appropriately
triumphant come-uppance, to get a queasy pass (one can almost imagine Alvarex
and co-writer Roso Sayagues working backwards from the Blind Man receiving a
mouthful of turkey-basted spunk).
The sex dungeon reveal is about the only really surprising development
in the movie, but it has the consequence of reducing Stephen Lang’s Blind Man
to a standard hissable villain, when there might have been a more nuanced
pay-off from giving all parties a point of view and requiring the audience to
navigate allegiances. I shan’t spend time bleating about the variable abilities
Lang displays, or question how exactly he managed to establish his lair sans
vision, since it isn’t like the genre doesn’t tend to play fast and loose with
rules and internal logic in favour of shocks; success is usually judged on
whether the visceral impact overcomes such peeves. Nevertheless, it might have
been an idea to give him more intruders to dispatch, so as to create a little
doubt about who’s going to make it out alive and when.
The trio of housebreakers vary from semi-sympathetic (Dylan
Minnette’s Alex is morally opposed to the plan from the off, but gets on board
for Rocky’s sake) to annoyingly so (they give Jane Levy’s Rocky a kid sister
she needs to get away from her drunk stepdad, motivation so rote, it’s only
Levy’s performance that makes her remotely relatable) to obviously doomed from
the first scene (Daniel Zovatto’s Money jizzes all over the floor of their
initial break-in – there may be a coherent subtext to Don’t Breathe’s profusion of ejaculate, but I wouldn’t bet on it).
Alvarez pulls off the scares with due diligence, including a
protracted sequence in a darkened cellar, a slobber-dog on the ravening loose
and a Lost World-inspired plunge onto
a cracking glass roof, but is never in danger of making the house seem less
than bigger on the inside than the out. The results are no Panic Room as far as high-water marks in claustrophobic tension go
(or Green Room for the matter), and
it would have been more fun if Lang had been closer to Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury than a vision-impaired Josef
Fritzl, but Don’t Breathe is nothing
if not efficiently staged. Producer Sam Raimi has said of the planned sequel, “It’s only the greatest idea for a sequel
I’ve ever head. I’m not kidding”. I very much doubt that, but I’m willing
to be convinced.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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