Horror has a new name!

Rating: 7/10 (25 August 2016)

The power of a film's opening establishing shot cannot be under-estimated. If done well it will pull the viewer in and the storytelling becomes an easier job. One of my favourite opening shots hails from Highlander (1986). It has that curious gaze on a scene of mayhem that breathes with unusual counterpoints. It is hypnotising, beguiling, almost surreal, as you try to make sense of it. However I can't say the rest of the film did that clever opening scene any justice. Don't Breathe, on the other hand, has none of these issues. It opens with a scene that feels weirdly out of place but yet has a visceral and realistic quality about it. Questions whizzed through my mind as I silently prayed that the journey of discovery be a rewarding one. It is. Oh my... It fricking is.
Uruguayan writer/director Fede Alvarez's debut is a remake of Evil Dead (1981) called.... ahem.... Evil Dead (2013). It is loud, deafening and pours a swimming pool of blood all over you because he thinks more is good. His sophomore effort Don't Breathe is quieter, superbly lo-fi and the scares hit a lot harder. Running at 88 minutes, this is one lean, mean, crackerjack of a movie. Nary a scene is wasted. It resembles Netflix's Hush a lot in the sense that it is a home invasion psychological horror film and the homeowner is physically impaired. In the excellent Hush, the female victim is a deaf mute, while in Don't Breathe we get a blind man. But mark this, the similarities end there. Hush is a straight up thriller and we can easily root for the victim and celebrate her clever one-ups against the psychopath. In Don't Breathe we don't get that luxury and our sympathies for each character will sway across the board. There is an air of unpredictability permeating throughout the movie and the tension slowly rams up to dizzying hair-pulling levels. There are some inventive scenes that press the "genre refresh" button and if you have been watching as many of these genre flicks as I have, that is something quite rare.
The best character here is definitely The Blind Man played devilishly well by Stephen Lang. His dialogue is very spare but when it comes it will send a shiver down your spine. He is feral, doesn't listen to desperate cries of mercy and is a force of primal nature. Being blind means naught to him because he knows the lay of his house like the back of his massive hand. The battleground is his playground. You can go in but you can't get out. At a certain point we discover a sickening secret about him and it is such an uncomfortable eye-popping moment. But yet it is a powerful scene because I started to pity his heartbreaking desperation. Lang has brought his A game and it is a character that will haunt me for a long time.
The cinematography is fluid and really brings out the claustrophobic feel of pure terror. Alvarez has delivered a thoroughly satisfying genre horror flick that is definitely not derivative. Evil Dead (2013) is forgotten. Don't Breathe is Alvarez's new first horror film. Horror has a new name. Remember his name.