Hold Your Breath

Instead of Hold Your Breath it should have been titled Close Your Eyes...yes folks, it was *that* bad. Some of the lines of dialog were absolutely hilarious though I am quite sure they weren't meant to be. I'll never see bobcats or sandpaper in the quite the same way again.

The actors attempts at actually acting were quite painful to watch and it would appear that most of them all used the same dentist as a majority of them had teeth that closely resembled chiclets.

The entire premise of this ridiculous film was flawed from the beginning but I won't try and explain why this movie was so awful and in so many ways as I am currently trying to erase it from my memory and forget that I ever watched it. Avoid this one at all costs.

The Asylum have made some tolerable movies, but a vast majority of their work, especially those from the disaster movie genre, is terrible. Hold Your Breath is far from their worst and is redeemable, but at the same time it is generally a poor movie. It does have a pretty effective opening sequence, a couple of inventive deaths, the beautiful Katrina Bowden giving a quite intense performance, Steve Hanks stealing every scene he's in and the hilarious line "You look as confused as a baby in a titty bar!". For me though, that's all there is to Hold Your Breath. The rest of the actors don't distinguish themselves and come across as bland and awkward. Actually Seth Cassell isn't so bad, he does have some acting talent but it is a talent that is not used very well at all in the movie because like all the actors he has little to work with. The actors do struggle with very cookie-cutter and severely underdeveloped characters and also a clunky script- that throws things in and leaves them unexplained often. McBride has the best lines easily, though I was never sure whether they were supposed to be taken seriously or for comedy. Excusing that the story is very derivative, with an idea that has been done to death already, the telling of it is very by-the-numbers, even some of the inventive deaths are not enough to disguise lazy exposition, really bad pedestrian pacing(especially after the prologue until McBride is introduced) or a distractingly goofy final act(like I was watching a different movie all of a sudden). The villain is not very memorable or menacing either. The direction and editing are amateurish at best, and the music doesn't gel with the atmosphere, some of the songs even sounded like bad, forgettable knock-offs of Evanescence. All in all, a poor movie but the Asylum has done worse than this. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I understand movies are supposed to be fantasy and what not, but people can't be this stupid. Even if you are curious enough to check out the abandoned building, thoughts of sex usually don't pop into your head. And who willingly sits in an electric chair? And you see the power surging so you tighten the electric chair head strap on your friend instead of taking it off? Not to mention giving up your phones into 1 location instead of just turning them off for the weekend? And let's not talk about the jank ending. You couldn't kill these kids off fast enough. Normally I'd complain about the lack of minorities in the film, but I can see why other races would not be bothered with this crew of plastic surgery nightmares

This movie, like a number of horrors of its kind, are better when you're younger. Once you get older and realize you bought the movie a few years ago and decide to re-watch it, you be like why did I buy this. With that said, it's something about corny horror movies that I like and this one is no different. When that police car blew up though, I was rolling, the effects were so bad. Acting could have been better and some of the dialogue needed to be revised. I'm not gonna say don't watch it or you should, but it is a little entertaining and probably is something for the horror collection.

No spoilers here, just basics.

The acting was fair to OK. The story/script was fair/OK (interesting, but maybe a little to detailed and over-thought, which COULD be OK or great).

But the direction and production of this just blew any "watchability" elements apart. What was reoccurring themes got lost in the convoluted mishmash of the director over emphasizing things that didn't matter, and letting things that do matter just slip right past. Then throwing in totally unneeded special effects that added nothing, and actually detracted from the ability to get into the story. On and on and on, ever 10 minutes part of me went "ok, I get why the actor played it that way, but why did they shoot the scene like that, and edit it that way, it might has well of been a live play on stage..."

If you can see past the horrible production of this movie, there is some decent acting and an interesting story underneath. But, to be honest, it's SO difficult to see because of the horrible production, I couldn't recommend ANYONE try to watch this movie (unless you are only doing so to get horror movie story ideas and see if the actors in it are any good).