Don't Bother

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2019)

I only gave this movie a 6 instead of a 5 because the first half has some fine set-pieces, and the use of interiors is pretty solid and engaging. Otherwise, I was heavily disappointed by this one. If this is the best horror movie in twenty years as the critics so claim, then that means horror is in a worse place than I could have ever imagined. Mediocrity should not be considered exceptional.
The biggest problem is that the main characters are just plain unlikable and the filmmakers clearly want us to root for them, particularly Rocky. However, I found her motivation far too shallow and flimsy, and her willingness to steal from a poor old blind man (before she knows about the rape dungeon in his basement) just so she and her kid sister can get to California to be, well, not justifiable given what she does know.
This would not be a problem if DON'T BREATHE was content to be a sleazy, fast-paced shocker, but it wants our hearts too and I just could not get invested in these people. Either make this more morally ambiguous, or make both the thieves and the blind man awful. The film tries to have both and it just fails dramatically.
By the end, the movie is just a shallow series of haunted-house bumps in the night and I just wanted it over. Yes, it's paced well, the cinematography is impressive, but when I don't care about a single thing happening onscreen, then what's the point?