Don't Breathe (2016)

I've heard good things about Don't Breathe, and thanks to a ninety-nine cent thrift store purchase I got to see it. Only eight years after its release.

Director Fede Alvarez did a fair job when he took the Evil Dead torch from Sam Raimi. This one isn't bad either.

Don't Breathe takes the played-out home invasion trope and has the ingenuity to do some different things with it. The movie has an intriguing beginning: Three robbers are doing a job in a house, but they not only steal, they trash the place and piss on the floors. These are supposed to be the protagonists? It's hard to sympathize with such creatures. It's impossible to have any for a wanna-be gangster who calls himself Money. There's a bit more to like about the other two thieves.

The band of outsider crooks hear about a blind old Gulf War vet in a dilapidated neighborhood. He supposedly has a large cache of cash in the place. They break in, only to find it much harder to get out.

Stephen Lang is the deranged vet, and he isn't as helpless as they hoped he'd be. There are numerous violent exchanges between the factions, and a lot of near escapes. Not to mention some juicy twists.

The filmmakers up the scales in the second half of the movie, and they almost lost me. The plot becomes too implausible and the situations more than a little bit disgusting. Watching someone gag on a turkey baster filled with his own spunk is a bit much, even for an old gorehound like me. But let's face it: Gore and a grossout are two entirely different things. The scene is like something from a John Waters picture, minus the humor.

Don't Breathe almost ends a bunch of times, and then it finally grinds to a halt. This is after plenty of jump scare scenes and over-the-top set pieces.

The entire movie looks fantastic. Almost too much so. A story like this would benefit, I think, from a grittier production design.

I give Don't Breathe the old one hand clapping ovation. Big points for the cinematography and performances, and some lost points due to lack of plausibility. And like most modern movies, this one looks like it was shot in Dankvision.

I hear there's a sequel. Not a logical one where the final girl is tracked by the police from all the DNA and her friends' remains in the house. No, another group decide to invade the same place.

Who am I to talk? I gushed over Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, and those things became increasingly ridiculous. The truth is, I was the target audience for them. Other than serious horror movies like The Changeling, they are mostly intended for teens and young adults. Don't Breathe worked for its demographic and was a big financial success.

It's like when I was thrilled to death by Halloween, Alien, The Thing, The Fly, Night of the Creeps, and so forth. They were the movies that made my young life. Thankfully I don't totally live in the past. I greatly enjoyed MaXXXine, for instance, in a rare movie theater experience.

In closing, if you want to see Stephen Lang as a crazy old reclusive coot, go for Lucky McKee's Old Man instead. It's a lot smarter and more haunting than Don't Breathe.

Written by Mark Sieber