A film with some shining aspects that ultimately let's me down in monumental ways.

Rating: 3/10 (4 September 2016)

There are some amazing things in Don't Breathe. The performances of all four of the main characters pass as real and are generally strong with only a few blemishes that, at least for me, didn't end up affecting my overall opinion of the movie. You have likely already noticed the extremely scathing review I have given the movie so I will quickly address what I really liked about the movie.
First, it's a return to a classic monster movie in many ways - the villain, or monster, is something that doesn't have morals attached at least in a conceptual sense. The villain is seen as more of a puzzle to be solved - the tension is built in the fact that the characters don't know how to approach the monster, making the blind man in don't breathe act like the Xenomorph in Alien or the Alien in The Thing, rather than Jigsaw in Saw. Having this being a human, and having his motivation being to simply protect what is his is really interesting.
There were also some really cool moments in terms of the actually imagery used. These moments are spread throughout and without spoiling anything, I won't delve into much specific detail. But those moments do exist and to be honest make up almost entirely the three stars I allotted this movie.
However, this movie, at least from how I saw it, is filled with flaws that almost seem too avoidable to be simply looked over. There were two glaring problems I had. First takes place very early on, right after the robbers enter the house. There is a long camera shot, that while impressive in its execution, is used to highlight various items around the house, giving the viewer a chance to piece together the potential utilization of said items before they even come into play.In a movie such as this, tension lies in the lack of information, the viewer, while they can make educated guesses, really only should know as much as the characters, but when you distinctly point out each item in the house, you're making the viewer have more information than the characters, subsequently killing tension.
The other flaw that annoyed me was the use of soundtrack. For a movie that creates tension through sound, there were too many moments where the soundtrack - that sounded uninspired and unoriginal - drowned out the tension that was being built by simply the presence noise or the lack thereof. There have been enough films before this one that thrived under the lack of a true soundtrack, while it is not in the same genre, No Country For Old Men is a great example.
These two aspects, along with another aspect that is so riddled with spoilers I dare not even tread into its waters, ultimately made me almost leave the theater.
My expectations were already set low for this movie, based on the Evil Dead remake, as well as the rehash of some horror tropes evident in the trailer. The concept itself is what made me give the movie a chance and it ended up letting me down completely. My suggestion to a potential viewer: watch either The Thing (1982) or 2016's Green Room for a much more thrilling and rewarding experience.