Don't Breathe Doesn't Deliver

Rating: 1/10 (25 August 2016)

Don't Breathe is a huge disappointment for those hoping for a refreshing take on the horror genre.
The film centers on three teenagers Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette) and Money (Daniel Zovatto) living in a destitute Detroit who burglarize homes in hopes of raising enough funds to one day leave Michigan for California. After receiving a tip about a veteran sitting on a large sum of settlement money from the death of his daughter the three decide to rob him to expedite their plans. They discover their target is blind while casing his home and think this will be to their advantage.
The film boasts that it is a revolution of horror but it falls into the most basic tropes. Majority of the jump scares are fake/false and the ones that had the most potential to be impactful were shown in the trailer for the film. The cat-and-mouse chase through the house is aggravating with arbitrary obstacles, dead ends and plot holes.
About thirty minutes in the film we find out that the Blind Man (Stephen Lang) has the woman that killed his daughter in his basement after she was found innocent of vehicular manslaughter. At first I thought this was supposed to be the big twist of the movie – even though this was shown in the trailer too – but after accidentally killing her the Blind Man revealed that she was pregnant with his child as a replacement for the one he lost.
After more cat-and-mouse antics, the Blind Man captures Rocky and intends for her to be his new surrogate. Strapping her into a homemade contraption that suspends her midair he begins to prep. The film was at the height of its tension and climax when the Blind Man pulled from his arsenal a turkey baster filled with his sperm. There was loud and raucous laughter from the audience I saw this with and I was one of them. It became even more ridiculous when Alex appears out of nowhere to rescue Rocky and during the scuffle Rocky shoves the semen-filled turkey baster into the Blind Man's mouth. The credibility of the entire film is undermined by this one scene and it made it difficult to take the rest of it seriously.
The most this film will achieve is cult status in the spirit of the original Evil Dead.