Don’t Breathe (2016) Review

I’m not usually a fan of the home invasion sub genre but after watching You’re Next and enjoying it then seeing the trailers for this maybe my anti home invasion stance is going to change. I loved the look of this film so had to watch it, it looked a unique take on the messing with the wrong bloke type of film. So here’s my thoughts on Don’t Breathe….

Director: Fede Alvarez

Writers: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues

Stars: Stephen Lang, Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette

Budget: $9,900,000 (estimated)

Run Time: 88 minutes

Trivia – This film was originally titled “A Man in the Dark.”

Trivia – Stephen Lang wore contact lenses that greatly restricted his vision, particularly in low light. The other actors, in the scene taking place in the dark, wore lenses that made them look like they had dilated pupils but also greatly restricted their vision.

The latest home invasion film is Don’t Breathe, now anyone who’s a regular reader of my blog will know I love a good high gory body count. Usually this doesn’t happen in these types of films but You’re Next broke that with several victims. Don’t Breathe however features a pretty small cast but it does everything else so right that the limited kills don’t matter even to me!

The story is basic there’s a group of reprobates that go round stealing from peoples houses and selling the goods they steal for a low price to some dodgy bloke in a van. The bloke then tells Money (the biggest prick of the group) that there’s an old man alone in a house with no neighbours and rumour has it he’s sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So Money rounds up his girlfriend Rocky and fellow reprobate Alex. The writers attempt to give us some kind of sympathetic feelings towards them with Rocky having a really tough home life with her young sister, she just needs money to escape her life. Instead of getting a job like everyone else she decides to steal from a blind old man, Alex is in love with Rocky so pretty much thinks with his genitals when helping.

So the group head to the house and manage to break in but then things quickly turn south. They thought that they’d managed to knock out the blind old guy (brilliantly played by Stephen Lang) but they didn’t and he catches one of them. If you’ve seen the trailer you’ll know what happens to that one fella as the others look on.

The film then does an expert job of having the other two characters trying to escape from the locked down house and avoid being detected by the blind old man who is clearly not as feeble as the thieves thought he would be. I was worried that things would drag out here as how long could one man chasing two people round a house last? But it didn’t drag at all in any way whatsoever.

It all leads to a climactic battle at the end as the blind old guy and his dog even leave the house to chase down a survivor. The end fight is really well done and despite the old guy being bat shit crazy I had zero sympathy for the thieving scum who brought it all on themselves, that’s not to say the old man isn’t a total creep though. Personally I only really wanted to see the dog live!

The Good

• Stephen Lang is fantastic.
• The Dog is good as well.
• The tense atmosphere that hits as soon as they realise they’ve got more to deal with than a lame old bloke is brilliantly directed.
• The chase scenes within the house are top notch.
• Really enjoyed the final battle scene.
• Loved the very end.

The Bad

• Maybe I’m just heartless but I found it quite a lame attempt to make us feel sympathy for people that would steal from an old, lonely, blind man.
• Some people might find the sperm scene a bit odd.

Apart from that I can’t really think of any other bad things in the film. The make up was superb as you’d expect, it ran smoothly, the acting was good there’s just that one element I wasn’t keen on and even that could just be me. I loved the look of this film as soon as I saw the trailers for it and I’ll be keeping an eye out to see if the director and/or writers do any more films. I highly recommend this film to anyone, I’ve seen people name Green Room as the best horror style film of the year but this is miles ahead of that in every way. So in short go watch it now!

Overall Rating – 9/10