Director Fede Alvarez’s thriller is a pitch black take on “Wait Until Dark” with a hint of “People Under the Stairs” taking a blind man who turns the tables on perpetrators. This time around though, the blind victim is a very prepared war veteran who skulks around like a predator even in his own home. When he begins challenging the thieves that infiltrate his oddly armed home filled with various pitfalls, he stalks them with confidence, even without eye sight. Stephen Lang’s Blind Man is an oddly horrific and intimidating new horror character who works on his own moral code. Whether or not he’s a villain may depend on the interpretation by the audience, and what they consider pure evil or just pure justification. Fede Alvarez teams two groups of victims against one another in a world that’s taken away all of their futures and ideas of hope.
One is a veteran, while trio of protagonists is impoverished teenagers stealing endlessly with the mission of escaping the poverty of Detroit which offers nothing but dead ends. Alvarez establishes their predicament with endless shots of abandoned and burned down houses painting the Detroit landscape. When they learn of a local blind man who was given a settlement by a rich family after the death of his young daughter, they decide the easy job will be their ticket to California and greener pastures. Alvarez is skilled at painting the house of Lang’s character as something of a domain that isn’t your typical home. From the outset, the moment the characters break in, he seems prepared for them and for every potential occurrence that could cause him physical harm. Alvarez even features numerous long pans and dolly shots that roam through halls and slide in and out of rooms, allowing us to view a vast place that is also claustrophobic.
Especially once Lang gets the upper hand. Lang injects a lot of intimidating body language to the central villain of the film, making him an individual whose lack of eyesight did nothing to stifle his potential to brutally eviscerate any and all potential predators and prey. Alvarez also grabs superb performances from the rest of the cast, including Alvarez’s new regular Jane Levy. She does a bang up job playing Rocky, a young girl whose future looks bleak the moment we meet her, whose mission doesn’t just become about survival but about proving something to herself. The sad fact is director Alvarez is held back by his enthusiasm, filming an establishing shot of the movie that depicts the fate of one of the film’s major characters. It seems injected to act as a fake out, but is a cheap spoiler, that is dropped in for shock value and makes the rest of the movie seem ultimately pointless.
After you see the prologue scene and then round the finale, a lot of what we see feels pointless since we understand how one character ends up, without a doubt. The blind man’s motivation in the big twist mid-way also never makes a ton of sense. Surely, we can understand why he’d break mentally, but we never learn why he sought out Rocky didn’t make much sense at all. In either case, “Don’t Breathe” is still a damn good survival thriller that works wonders with claustrophobia, tension, startling action, and in taking the home invasion film and giving it a unique twist.
The release for “Don’t Breathe” comes packed a Digital Copy for consumers, as well as bonus content, including five small featurettes with Fede Alvarez, including “No Escape,” “Creating the Creepy House,” “Meet the Cast,” “Man in the Dark” and “The Sounds of Horror.” There are eight deleted scenes with optional commentaries by Fede Alvarez, co-writer Rodo Sayagues, and actor Stephen Lang. The deleted scenes clock in at fifteen minutes, there’s also the commentary with Director Fede Alvarez, Co-Writer Rodo Sayagues and Actor Stephen Lang. Lang jokes about how tough it was to drag a body down the street, the animal wrangler who handled the dogs used during the action, and the lady bug.
Fede also discusses how he meticulously counted every bullet shot for a key scene. “No Escape” is a BTS of the scenes being filmed, and the filmmakers discussing the style, the darkness, and the drone shots down streets. “Creating the Creepy House” is about the primary setting, how the house was recreated on a studio, and descriptions of various shots. “Meet the Cast” introduces us to the three main characters who unfortunate enough to enter the house, their obstacles in life and motivations for their career choices. “Man in the Dark” is about the blind man, as played by Stephen Lang. Lang discusses his role, his motivations, his back story, and why he responds in such a predatory manner. Finally, there is “The Sounds of Horror” which focuses on the score and importance of music in the film, regarding atmosphere and emotion.