Don't Breathe review

Director: Fede Alvarez
Certificate: 15
Running time: 88 minutes


Without doubt one of the best horror/thrillers I have ever watched

I hardly ever get scared from movies, there are some that I might find disturbingly violent and gory, but rarely do I feel the peril of the characters onscreen. Which is Don't Breathe's greatest triumph, at every beat I was thoroughly involved in the eventual cat and mouse nature of the film's premise, and never once did I predict its twist and turns.

Set in Detroit, the plot is about a group of three burglars who break into the home of a blind war veteran (Stephen Lang), hoping to get the compensation money he received when his daughter was killed in a car accident. Rocky (Jane Levy) is from a broken home and plans to move to California with her sister, Alex (Dylan Minnette) is the sympathetic one with a conscious, and Money (Daniel Zovatto) is the brash and arrogant one.

As you'd expect, things don't quite go to plan and they eventually have to fight for their own survival. In most house invasion movies, the house is nothing more than just a setting, in Don't Breathe it feels like a villain (in this case) within itself, a place that is inescapable. It's helped by the way the film is shot, most horror/thrillers are often made so that the locations are nothing more than wallpaper, always reminding the audience that they are looking in from the outside, a voyeur of sorts. But Don't Breathe is closed in and personal, which creates a real feeling of dread and tension that never once lets you off the hook.    

The villain is unique as well, while still coming across as excruciatingly antagonistic he actually has a vulnerability, he isn't just some supernatural force of power with little motivation other than to kill for the sake of it. So the stakes are always high.

The violence is raw but not gratuitous, there are a few brutal moments where you might have to look away for a second or two, but nothing that is particularly upsetting.

It's not all good though, the last third is a bit exhausting and derivative, nothing that will take you out of the film, but the gradual pace of the film suddenly goes up one too many gears. And the ending is a little anti climatic, while it doesn't ruin the experience, the payoff just feels short changed.

Verdict: With superb performances all round, Don't Breathe is one of the best films I've seen this year, and one of the best edge of your seat thrillers I have ever seen. I would highly recommend this film, unmissable. 

A, 8/10