Don't see Don’t Breathe

Don’t Breathe is a movie that has blown up in box offices and been a hit for teenage audiences across the country.

The premise sounds like something out of a typical B-rate horror flick. During the movie, a group of young adults decides to break into a disabled veteran’s home, seeking to steal the small fortune the man had obtained from a law settlement following his daughter’s passing. They soon get more than they bargained for when they realize he can and will kill them before he lets them take what he owns.

Motivated by her desire to save her little sister from a life of poverty and move to California, female lead and main character Rocky (played by Actress Jane Levy, who also starred in another horror film, Evil Dead) soon finds herself face to face with the Blind Man (played by Stephen Lang, most famously starring in three-hour-long sci-fi thriller Avatar) and all of his worst secrets, eventually struggling throughout the course of the movie to escape his wrath and get out of his house with the cash.

Produced by the same company responsible for Evil Dead, the movie has won widespread critical acclaim since its release on August 25th. Earning an impressive 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a high 7.8/10 on IMDB, Don’t Breathe seems to have swayed critics and horror movie lovers in its favor with its unique premise and interesting development.

However, I don’t believe that the movie deserved quite this much acclaim.

The movie did have some high points to boast about, including many well-placed jump scares that lent some traditional horror movie elements to the film.

It was also very well-filmed, with artful cinematography that created a fitting mood for the story. The setting the directors chose was perfect for the storyline, as well: perfectly isolated, neglected, decrepit, and just plain creepy.

Despite this praise, though, I believe that it must be mentioned that I truly did not enjoy Don’t Breathe.

First, the plot of the movie is not very suspenseful, which was disappointing given its genre as a suspense/horror film. Instead of relying on a good plot or an interesting premise to hook its viewers and get them involved in the film, Don’t Breathe’s action relies mainly on jump scares and on various unnecessary ‘plot twists’ that could be eliminated and still result in the same conclusion.

Additionally, the characters- though they are given motives for their actions as well as some amount of background information- are relatively one-dimensional. This keeps with the trend seen throughout horror and suspense flicks, where characters are simply in the movie for the sake of being hunted, chased, or killed. Viewers are not given any reason to really sympathize or empathize with the teens during the movie, instead almost longing for them to get captured just so the cyclical ‘plot twists’ will end.

The movie’s ending was also rather disappointing, seeing as a disturbing twist near the end- which, it must be noted, was NOT disturbing in a good way- nearly spoils the action and the plot altogether. I believe that if the writers instead focused more on the Blind Man’s real motive and less on shock value, it could have ended much better and left me feeling satisfied instead of disgusted.

All in all, this was the first R-rated movie I’ve seen since I’ve turned seventeen, and I wish I could take it back. Please take my advice and don’t waste your time going to see Don’t Breathe in theaters.