Still

'Hush' is a lot like 'The Strangers', except instead of strangers plural it's only one man, and instead of a husband and wife being terrorized it's a deaf and mute recluse. It's very tense and cleverly written bar a few cliché tropes that come with this kind of movie. It also has a minimal synth score, something I notice more and more horror movies are utilizing - 'You're Next', 'It Follows' - to give it an '80s classic slasher atmosphere. It's hard to even call it horror though as it offers far more thrills than actual scares. I was thoroughly satisfied watching this movie. It's constantly engaging, and that has a lot to do with the terrific performances of both the man and Maggie, and there are a few scenes that are genuinely depraved and chilling. It doesn't break any new ground, but following 'The Babadook' and 'It Follows', 'Hush' continues to reinspire the subtle, quiet corner of the genre and bodes well for the future of psychological thrillers. Highly recommended.

The film started off quite well from the outset, with a nice setup. Having the main character be deaf is interesting, but unfortunately it doesn't pay off very well. There's not much buildup to the game of cat and mouse that makes up the bulk of the story and so the viewer is thrust into the action in a way that seriously lessens its impact. There are flashes of promise in the first ten or so minutes but after that it's a fairly clichéd survival horror that doesn't offer anything spectacular. Some fleeting moments of tension and shock make it worth a one time watch if you're curious, but don't go into it with high expectations.

Let us start with the fact that this is not a horror movie. It's a thriller, with some interesting unusual aspects, as well as a few cringe-worthy flaws (in character logic, as the case always seems to be).

So what makes this movie stand out and feel almost fresh? The obvious first is that our protagonist is deaf-mute. Not being an expert on deaf people, I still believe this was played quite consistently to the movie's credit. It is interesting to occupy the head space of someone missing such an important sense in a frightful situation.

Another thing I noticed is the total lack of jump scares. There isn't a single jump-scare in the movie, which only further distances Hush from being a horror movie. In fact the usual creep factor as a whole is kept to a minimum. It quickly becomes a cat-and-mouse kind of battle of wits more than anything else, which I found a pleasant surprise, despite being more of a horror fanatic.

The third curious thing is that from the get go it's made clear that the killer is very much human. We don't know what his motivations are, he's just out to kill and doesn't give much of a s*** about anything else but his upper hand. He doesn't have much of a plan and has to improvise, as does our protagonist to survive.

I found the thrill in this movie to be more intellectual than primal. The gore is neither profuse nor lacking, it's there when it's needed. It's well shot, acted, directed and edited, considering the modest budget, and doesn't overstay its welcome. I'd recommend it for a rainy evening if you want to see the thriller genre try something new.

A chess game of suspense involving a deaf girl and a serial killer locked outside her home in the woods.

It sounds like a cliché with a twist, and it is, but it's a really good cliché with a twist.

For a start the premise that the lead character Maddie, the deaf writer, who is home alone after a relationship break up, opens up a box of plot twists and devices that are unfamiliar in their familiarity.

Second, Maddie, (Kate Siegel) dominates the movie, even though it's essentially a double hander, with a superbly sympathetic performance that never gets you shouting "don't do that", as is common in this genre.

The tension does not let up from start to finish (and it's only 82 minutes so doesn't outstay its welcome) as the masked invader tries to outwit Maddie and vice versa.

The temptation might have been to take Maddie's disability and, like with Audrey Hepburn's blindness in Wait Until Dark, use it to her advantage somehow; but that does not transpire. It's actually her skills as a writer (she is completing her latest crime novel when the would be assassin strikes) that gives her some traction in what should be a one-sided battle.

This is an intelligent, well paced and well shot, low budget slasher movie, but on a higher plane.

Mike Flanagan is one for two in my books. His first big film was Absentia, which was a slow boring mess of a film. Interesting ideas, but nothing much else was going on in the film. His second output was a vast improvement, Oculus. Flanagan showed promise and improvement, which made me interested in seeing what else he had for future projects. Well, he has two films coming out in 2016 and I want to talk about Hush, his take on the home invasion sub-genre.

Home invasion films have been done to death. Some are great (You're Next), some are tolerable (The Strangers) and some are downright terrible (When A Stranger Calls, 2006). So how does one make their home invasion film stand out from the rest? There has to be some twist on the story to make it memorable. You're Next was a great deconstruction of the genre itself and had the heroine be a survival specialist. The twist Hush brings us lies in the fact that our protagonist if completely deaf.

The key element that makes or breaks this film is the sound design. I felt like the crew pulled it off and we have a solid thriller on our hands here. Maddie is a deaf author and she has secluded herself in a house in the woods to write her next book. Problems arise when someone outside her house decides to play a deadly game with Maddie and know she has to keep him out and escape alive. Again, this is a simple premise that is only made interesting by the fact that she is deaf and how the filmmakers decide to handle that aspect of the story.

While the film does inevitably go down routine routes with the story, Flanagan does so with skill and finesse. Multiple times throughout the film we are in Maddie's shoes as Flanagan completely mutes the audio. We see the terror happening behind her, but we cannot hear it. He can be entering the house at any point and we will not know. Flanagan manages to seep the viewer in suspense throughout the whole film and while there are some gory and squeamish scenes, he doesn't rely on them. They feel real and earned. Looking back at the film there are multiple sequences where I was taken back or had a huge grin on my face with the ingenuity of it all.

People will ultimately try to find inconsistencies with how the film handles the deaf aspect. I had maybe one issue myself, but can look past it for the benefit of the enjoyment I ultimately had because of the film. With a small cast of only four people and hardly any dialogue (maybe 15 minutes total?) Hush is a well crafted film that earns a viewing from anyone who likes this genre.