Don't Breathe

Stephen Lang in Don't Breathe

Fede Alvarez's Don't Breathe strikes me as the most interestingly directed of the recent batch of good horror films. The plot is simple: a trio of thieves try to rob a blind man in his decrepit Detroit mansion, but he turns the tables on them. A lean, largely silent 88 minutes, the film greatly benefits from a titanic performance by Stephen Lang as the intended victim who has a few surprises for the perps and the audience. Unfortunately, Alvarez fails to elicit satisfactory performances from the male members of his larcenous trio. Jane Levy, a holdover from Alvarez's remake of Evil Dead, is good as the token femme.

Alvarez arranges his shots to emphasize squares and rectangles. The aerial vistas that open the film emphasize the grid like nature of Detroit's neighborhoods. We first view the blind man's house within the rectangular confines of an alleyway. When the trio is locked in the house by the blind man, they try to escape via doors, grates, air vents and other four sided portals. They have no exit and are caught like rats in a maze.

The audience sympathy for the trio is increased when it is revealed that the blind man is a Nietzschean psycho. Thus, the culturally diverse trio become the communitarian bulwark against the out of control individualism of the white American male. A blow against the patriarchy is needed, especially when the blind man tries to impregnate the trussed heroine with a baster. All of this might seem silly were it not for Lang's howling at the moon performance. Whether he is immobile, vulnerable, confused or manic with vein trembling fury, Lang is a physical marvel here. After forty or so years in the business and over a hundred credits, he deserves to cash in with Don't Breathe 2. (7/22/18)