“Blu-ray or Bust” - DON’T BREATHE

“Blu-ray or Bust”

DON’T BREATHE (2016, R, 88 minutes, GHOSTHOUSE PICTURES/SONY)

Hollywood has found it in its blackened, regurgitative heart to pay closer attention to horror films these days.

Most of the crap-flicks now go straight-to-video; actually, as this here be modern times, most of it goes straight-to-streaming. There are much fewer horror films released in theatres these days than there were, say, back in the 90’s. The slasher film has had its heyday, and passed on like one of its teenage victims. Genetically bred monsters have retired to the subbasements of ill-conceived and overused government labs, and alien invasions have become a thing of yesterday (unless Roland Emmerich has his way…).

What now sneaks out of La La Land under the cover of darkness and original ideas are horror films that give a slight nod-and-a-wink to those films of bygone eras and leave them far, far behind. I’m talking smart horror films, kids. Movies that are intelligent little nuggets of terror, which use basic premises and turn them on their heads. By lending a more psychological element to the proceedings, directors and writers have turned our definition of ‘horror’ on its bloody, bludgeoned head. Horror no longer necessarily means there HAS TO BE a giant monster, or that there HAS TO BE an un-killable maniac with a machete or a giant freaking knife.

 

IT FOLLOWS was groundbreaking because it lifted the “teen has sex, teen dies” bit of the 80’s to horrifyingly new and smarter levels. Yes, there was a monster, but you couldn’t always see it, and it never looked the same. The first INSIDIOUS film took the ghost story and re-wrote the rules, which director James Wan repeated with the equally good THE CONJURING.

With DON’T BREATHE, director/writer Fede Alvarez (the man behind 2013’s EVIL DEAD remake) goes one step further: he brings along a cinematographer who waxes poetic all over your face, like a ruptured carotid artery of visual assault. The way this film is shot is enough to make this required viewing; from the wonderfully shot sequence of the team of burglars/friends looking through the house of ‘The Blind Man’, to the amazing all-dark photography that lets in brilliant flashes of color whenever a shot is fired…

There are enough subtle touches both behind and in front of the camera to make you want to re-watch specifically for certain elements. But all technical aspects aside, watch this because of Stephen ‘Freaking’ Lang (AVATAR, “Terra Nova”). His performance of the blind homeowner who finds himself defending his house against three able-bodied teens is nothing short of (OBVIOUS PUN ALERT) breathtaking. I don’t like spoilers, so I cannot say much about him, but you have to watch closely to catch all the little things he brings to the job. The rest of the cast is good—Jane Levy (EVIL DEAD, “Suburgatory”) as “Rocky”, our morally questionable heroine, is especially effective—but this movie belongs to Lang… and to cinematographer Pedro Luque (ABC’S OF DEATH 2)…

… and to that damnable maze of a house. Oh, and musician Roque Baños.

Just go watch the dang movie before the sequel comes out, ‘kay?

Film Grade: A

Special Features: A (several short docs that give you peeks behind all of the magic—just enough to make you appreciate the finished product even more, without the boredom of one half-hour doc where everyone talks about how awesome the gaffer was)

Blu-ray Necessary: Abso-freakin’-lutely

-- T.S. Kummelman