Don't Breathe : La Maison des ténèbres

I was expecting this film to be cheesy and well, crap! But I was surprised. I feel it grips the audience really well.

Three burglars find out about a blind army vet, living in an abandoned street, sitting on a huge amount of cash. The three burglars break their rule of not stealing cash and decide to rob the place, thinking it would be a piece of cake. And of course it isn't. The blind army vet isn't as helpless as they had hoped for.

Don't Breathe is directed by Fede Alvarez, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Rodo Sayagues. They obviously felt inspired by David Fincher's Panic Room (2002), and did come up with a great, suspenseful movie. The three burglars are played by Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto, who all do a great job. Stephen Lang however outshines everyone in this movie as the old blind man. He doesn't say a lot but his gestures and mimics were enough to be uncomfortably creepy. Even though he played a blind guy, he still made his character seem anything but helpless, on the contrary, his character was more menacing than any ghost, monster or murderer from your average horror movie. On the other hand however, you feel sorry for the blind man. He's simply a man trying to protect his house from burglars. Or is there more behind this man? The movie does a good job making you wonder about whether the blind man has something to hide or not. The movie does a poorer job however with Daniel Zovatto's character, he's the typical character every horror movie has: the asshole that talks too much and doesn't care about anything or anyone.

Besides one or two cheap jump scares, the movie succeeded at maintaining a lingering suspense throughout the entire movie. Once the three burglars are inside the house, there won't be a moment that you'll feel at ease. This is an edge-of-your-seat kind of movie. The movie opens with a scene that obviously takes place later in the movie, which alerts you that until that scene, the burglars will never be safe, and heightens the suspense even more.

As the movie progresses, the twists and turns in the story start to accumulate. Twists and turns in a story are great but not if there are too many, and not if these twist and turns are the ones you might expect from a horror movie. Throughout its course, the movie becomes more and more predictable. And this is where the suspense, although still being present, lessens.

'Don't Breathe' is a great horror movie, accessible for people who don't usually enjoy the genre. It has a great premise and is very suspenseful but becomes a bit too predictable over time.

After Evil Dead's well-made remake, a lot of us felt that Fede Alvarez was a director to watch. With Don't Breathe, he definitely became a director I'm very excited to see future projects from.

I admire his knack to generate tension. After the film kicks off, there is really no stopping. It became almost unbearable at the end, nearly reaching the point of overkill. When you have a thriller filled with so much tension throughout its running time, there's only so much you can do before you start yelling "you gotta be kidding me" at the screen.

The cinematography was beautiful and moody and the performances were fine, except maybe Jane Levy, who I felt was too wooden, making her character a little bit unlikable.

Don't Breathe was a solid effort and a great addition to the home invasion genre with a little twist.

Not being a massive fan of horror films I'm quite selective in which ones I watch . The reviews for this were pretty good so I gave it a go and I have to say I really enjoyed it. It's the story of three friends who decide to rob the home of a blind war veteran but things go terribly wrong when they find out that there is more to this man than they first thought. What I like about this is that it doesn't have any supernatural aspect to the story so it feels more real than most horrors. There are some quite disturbing scenes so it's not for the faint hearted . One especially involving a turkey baster but you will have to see the film to find out what that's all about ! All in all it's well worth a watch but not with granny at Christmas.

When a group of teenagers decide to rob the house of a blind man, they get more than they bargained for when they realise this won't be like taking candy from a baby. This film was made on a relatively small budget and for that it deserves to be applauded. The central idea about the blind man and the way he uses his environment compared to the thieves is a good concept. In theory, with light they have the advantage, but without it the advantage switches. And the way this theme was developed wasn't bad. However, it's not as engaging as it could have been as I felt a certain disinterest in the outcome of the thieves. I think it's because of a lack of character development. We see Rocky and her sister living in not great conditions at the start of the movie so we know she wants the money to create a better life for her and her sister. But this section is brief. As for the boys, their back story was little to nothing. Enough time wasn't spent to let us get to know the teenagers before the action began, which meant that I didn't really care too much about what happened to them. There is also a big problem with plot holes. There were probably at least 4 or 5 times during the film where I thought "why would the characters do this? Or how the hell is that possible?" Another issue relates to a revealing scene later in the movie where the film loses its conviction in its own idea and goes more mainstream. The funny thing is, that was when the film was at its most interesting. But it was because of the shocking reveal that the viewer could finally understand something about the blind man that made him more than just what he'd been shown to be to that point. It's an extreme scene and somewhat uncomfortable to watch, but it provided some motive for what was happening up to that point.

Overall the film had potential. It's only 88 mins which means there was room to extend it a little to give us more of a back story to the main characters. That said, The cinematography, score and cast performance are all terrific.