In a market saturated with supernatural horror, Don't Breathe is an unexpected film. Rather than relying on gore, unnecessary jumpscares, and monsters, director Fede Alvarez's sophomore film takes a rather minimalist approach. There is surprisingly little gore, jumpscares aren't just for cheap reactions from the audience, and the monster is disturbingly human, with motivations we understand.
Our scene is a rundown house in Detroit, the only one in the neighborhood that's still occupied. Inside, we have a blinded veteran (played by Stephen Lang) mourning the loss of his daughter with apparently only a rottweiler for company. Rumor has it, he's also sitting on $300,000 in cash, which came from a settlement paid to him by the family of the woman who ran over his daughter.
He makes a tempting target for the film's three protagonists: Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette), and Money (Daniel Zovatto), three delinquents who make a living robbing houses with Alex's father's security system. Shots of ruined Detroit buildings and insights into Rocky's neglectful home life create a sense of urgency for Money and especially Rocky. They both want to make enough money to find a better life in California. Alex is ambivalent about leaving the city, but eventually decides to go with them when the time comes.
The quick robberies they've been doing, however--only objects and never things worth more than $10,000 to keep from being charged with grand larceny--aren't cutting it. Rocky, in particular, wants to take her little sister and leave her abusive mother now. Money hears about the veteran with the $300,000 payout, and he's the one who suggests the heist. After some hesitation on Alex's part, they decide to go through with it.
We learn all of this in the first 15-20 minutes of the film.
The rest of it is devoted to finding their way through the house, especially after their veteran proves he's not nearly as helpless as the protagonists expected. Alvarez does remarkable things with space, using all three floors of the house and the ventilation system. There is one long scene in the basement, where The Blind Man shuts off the power and gives himself the advantage. He knows every inch of his basement and its labyrinthine shelves. The protagonists don't. Shot in very convincing night vision, the scene is terrifying.
Another effective thing the film does is that, rather than rapidly cutting away and using shaky camera work, the film uses several continuous, steady shots, which makes the audience feel as claustrophobic as the characters do.
I only have a few complaints about the film. The first is paper-thin characterization. Levy's Rocky and Lang's The Blind Man are probably the most developed characters in the film, and even then, we still don't get much to work with. Money and Alex are basically lost causes. Their actors do very well with the material they've been given, but there's only so much they can express when all they have to work with are "Street Thug" and "Pining Boy" archetypes. Alex, in particular, I don't get. Why does he get involved with robbery in the first place? Unlike Money and Rocky, he has a nice, suburban home and what sounds like a solid relationship with his father. It might have been a good idea to allow both of those characters to breathe a little. Given that the film's run time is only 88 minutes, they had the time.
I only have two other complaints, and they aren't as big.
1. There is a NASTY scene with a turkey baster that (thankfully) doesn't follow through.
2. There are too many jumpscares at the end.
They're not like that one early in The Purge, for example, where they show us Lena Headey's ankles and expect us to be thinking "There is totally a murderer behind this POV!" Not, like, a child or said child's creepy robot. That would just be silly and cheap...BOO!!!
The jumpscares at the end of Don't Breathe are believable ones, alternately involving the Blind Man, his rottweiler, or both, but there's so. Many. At least four or five times, the protagonist seems safe, but then a vicious dog or THIS GUY...
...appears out of nowhere and tries to shoot someone in the face!
By the last one, I was thinking "Dear God, let it end. My heart literally cannot handle any more."
Its few flaws aside, it's a well-made, tightly plotted, fantastically paced film. I highly recommend it.
