Don't Breathe was a movie I was unsure what to expect when I sat down to watch it the first time, truth is that I start watching without knowing the title or what it was about and the intense thriller that was Don't Breathe kept me thinking every time I remember about it that I decided to watch it again to be sure it was as good as I thought the first time. One thing is for sure, it does flips the home invasion genre on its head with certain situations that you most likely wont find in real life cases. The movie is set in Detroit's abandoned neighborhoods, three young thieves rob a blind veteran, sounds easy right, well they thought will be an easy target. This is what begins as an easy enough job then spirals into something much darker and more complicated than I had anticipated.
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It’s the story of Rocky, a young woman who is desperate to get away from her toxic home life with her little sister. She and her boyfriend Money join forces with friend Alex and she and Alex use Alex’s dad’s company security codes to rob houses. Its here where her boyfriend Money sees the blind veteran sitting on a huge cash settlement from his daughter's death as their ticket out of Detroit. The plan seems simple enough, break in and grab the money from the old veteran. From the moment they set foot in that house, everything goes wrong. This is a true Veteran of war that has gone blind but develop way more than they would image the rest of this sense and it starts a deadly game of cat and mouse, a game that I was questioning who to root for, because the blind man played with terrifying intensity by Stephen Lang is anything but helpless in fact many times ruthless, think about Rambo going to war but very old and blind.
There is a lot of weight on the performances and Jane Levy's as Rocky since she is the most of the emotional character behind this movie, she brings a raw desperation to her that makes you understand and if not entirely support her choices, she does look clueless without knowing better but its her determination that got me thinking how bad her life is that she still go for it when she had the chance to escape without the money but at least her life. Stephen Lang absolutely nail down his role as The Blind Man / The Veteran and he makes a man that is both a threat and tragic because he has choose to keep going with life even under the drastic condition of his sight, close to zero if not zero. Some of the most nerve wracking scenes I've seen in horror were his movements, how he tilts his head to listen and how he goes around his house with every single step and move almost calculated, this guy is a machine when it comes to close combat while not seen a thing. Dylan Minnette as Alex and Daniel Zovatto as Money is just the two who the story needed as the one that sets their downfall in motion, pushing things to the edge of getting their golden ticket out of Detroit.
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There is not much to the movie as the plot is very simple but a hard one to pull off, we have a close scenario where everything happens inside a house with only four characters in it, very little dialog and on top of all this some dark scenes. Sound design became key aspect of the movie as every creaking floorboard, every held breath, becomes vital to survival and to bring out the emotions of the audience. Fede Alvarez, the director, if famous for this kind of horror and suspense situations, when it comes to building suspense he doesn't rely on graphic gore to keep you on edge, he uses the threat of violence instead.
Don't Breathe is a complicated thing to me personally, without much interaction it all depends on the surprise element and I'm not talking about scare jumps, its the sound and scenario setup that puts you on alert with some of the most effective tension building in a thriller I’ve seen.
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The movie start to turn dark, almost too dark that completely shatters its carefully crafted moral ambiguity, from suffering of life to trying to steal from a blind man even when it means loosing your own life. I would think many at first had a hard time to figure out who to root for, the thieves or the veteran, but towards the end I was on the veteran side, Rocky, Alex and Money got themself into this situation with many changes to escape. Although the big jaw dropping moment is when the truth about the blind man comes out, the guy had a woman captive in his basement, this woman is who killed his daughter in car accident so he thought it was only right she gives birth and give him a new child to replace the one she took from him, yup big WTF moment so who was still right at this point? blind man or thieves? well I would say this are two different situations, its like killing a thieve that tries to take something from your home but also tries to avoid all kind of violence or contact, why you still going to chase him to kill him? life choices. This twist in the story feels like a cheap shot taken against the blind man but it certainly has a big effect on generating feelings from the audience and that is what its all about, a movie must generate some kind of feelings for the audience to be immerse into it. At this point the movies goes beyond who is wrong or right but all about survival into specific and separate situations creating a big moral dilemma, stepping out of the horror topic.
At the end Rocky gets away with the money after a brutal brawl where the blind man repeatedly hits her with a crowbar and pushes him into the basement, causing his gun to fire into his side, but the victory is hollow and dirty, by the way it was not until the second time I watch it I notice the blind man name is Norman. He remains alive in the hospital and the news go out of what happen at his place, with Norman hiding Rocky’s involvement and maybe saving this information for future calculated move here and the subtle smile he puts on beneath his respirator during the news interview, question is "is Norman going after Rocky?", I'm planing on re watching the second part as it came out a few years ago, also have my doubts about it too.
The most interesting thing about this ending is that it was much lighter than I thought, after watching how much vengeful Norma was at a certain point I thought he would not kill them but keep them in the basement too, but even with the "happy" ending we got, there’s still a tinge of darkness as Rocky boards that train to Los Angeles with her sister Diddy. She got out with the money and her life, but the psychological scars of what went on in that house, watching her friends die and almost becoming Norman's forced surrogate. The ending is perfect, I think it satisfies both part of the audience. From me, Don't Breathe gets a solid 7.5/10. It’s a movie that proves you can make real horror without depending on scare jumps or buckets of blood pouring into the screen, plus a great ending that not only is kinda impartial but also keeps the door open for a sequel.
