Don't Breathe : La Maison des ténèbres

Three burglars find out about a blind army vet, living in an abandoned street, sitting on a huge amount of cash. The three burglars break their rule of not stealing cash and decide to rob the place, thinking it would be a piece of cake. And of course it isn't. The blind army vet isn't as helpless as they had hoped for. Don't Breathe is directed by Fede Alvarez, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Rodo Sayagues. They obviously felt inspired by David Fincher's Panic Room (2002), and did come up with a great, suspenseful movie. The three burglars are played by Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto, who all do a great job. Stephen Lang however outshines everyone in this movie as the old blind man. He doesn't say a lot but his gestures and mimics were enough to be uncomfortably creepy. Even though he played a blind guy, he still made his character seem anything but helpless, on the contrary, his character was more menacing than any ghost, monster or murderer from your average horror movie. On the other hand however, you feel sorry for the blind man. He's simply a man trying to protect his house from burglars. Or is there more behind this man? The movie does a good job making you wonder about whether the blind man has something to hide or not. The movie does a poorer job however with Daniel Zovatto's character, he's the typical character every horror movie has: the asshole that talks too much and doesn't care about anything or anyone. Besides one or two cheap jump scares, the movie succeeded at maintaining a lingering suspense throughout the entire movie. Once the three burglars are inside the house, there won't be a moment that you'll feel at ease. This is an edge-of-your-seat kind of movie. The movie opens with a scene that obviously takes place later in the movie, which alerts you that until that scene, the burglars will never be safe, and heightens the suspense even more. As the movie progresses, the twists and turns in the story start to accumulate. Twists and turns in a story are great but not if there are too many, and not if these twist and turns are the ones you might expect from a horror movie. Throughout its course, the movie becomes more and more predictable. And this is where the suspense, although still being present, lessens. 'Don't Breathe' is a great horror movie, accessible for people who don't usually enjoy the genre. It has a great premise and is very suspenseful but becomes a bit too predictable over time.

An excessively positive description of the plot would be routine, boring, and improbable. A more balanced description would add that it is stupid, idiotic, moronic, and imbecilic. Over and over the heroes, who really are scum, never get the idea to distract the blind guy by throwing something to the other side of the room. It never occurs to them to smash out a window and escape through it. It never occurs to them to trip the guy. It never occurs to them to pick up things to use as weapons, even though appropriate objects are lying all over the place and indeed are picked up by the blind guy. Near the end, how does the blind guy run way down the street straight for his victim? Is he really Batman, able to echo-locate? Especially after one of the scum/heroes has bashed his head repeatedly with a 2-pound maul. When the police come near the end, wouldn't they have been a mite curious about the basement prison cell the blind guy had constructed? The photography is truly terrible. Most of the time you can't see what is going on because the action mostly takes place in the dark. Oddly, the blind guy has enough dim lights on so that you can see people moving around but not enough to see anything clearly. Later, the blind guy turns off the lights, but why did he have them on in the first place? He's blind, so why spend the money on the electricity? Why does this routine 1920s-style small house have so many strange shafts, both vertical and horizontal? How did the blind guy kidnap the young woman who killed his daughter? How did he get all those mattresses and bondage equipment to build the cell? How did the blind guy get rid of the dead girl's body? There was a scene that I think depicted that, but like most of the movie, it was too dark to figure out what he was doing. Why not bash the dog's head in with a chair or frying pan or something? Why spend any more time on this worthless waste of time?

Don't Breath is a great movie with a very well developed plot and a stellar cast. It is an absolute thrill ride, from the moment we enter this man's house there is a tension that does not go away, it never becomes tiring. It had me at the edge of my seat from start to finish, as we quickly gain support for these thieves as they get caught up in a bad situation. It did, on the other hand, make some cliché plot developments. There are some moments that were so typical they took me away from a movie that was clearly trying to stand out, but was clearly forced by the studio to have some predictable plot points. The cast is phenomenal and their chemistry with one another added to the suspense. Jane Levy and Dylan Minnette were very believable as down on their luck teenagers. The star of the show, however, is without a doubt Stephen Lang, a completely engrossing performance of a ruthless man with no soul, I believe it will go down as the highlight of his career. The intimacy of the film is the main thing that makes it so fresh and interesting as a thriller, if it was taking place around a city or in a town it would not be half as suspenseful as having it all take place in a house. An intense adventure, Don't Breathe is a refreshing movie that certainly stands out from the crowd, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good thriller. A group of teenagers break in to a blind man's home in order to rob his possessions, however, they soon realise he is far smarter than they thought. Best Performance: Stephen Lang