The heist to steal two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars comes at a price of life and death by a handicap veteran out to protect his property. In “Don’t Breathe”, the new psychological thriller from Screen Gems, we meet Rocky (Jane Levy), a teenage delinquent living with neglectful parents, who promises her younger sister Diddy (Emma Bircovici) that they will start their own lives together and move away from their dysfunctional family. Looking for the right amount of cash to run away with in order to do so, her boyfriend, Money (Daniel Zovatto), convinces her to break into the home of a blind man (Stephen Lang) who supposedly has a safe in the basement. After breaking into the house in the middle of the night with their friend Alex (Dylan Minnette), they discover that the blind man is not as helpless as he seems, and soon find themselves in a game of cat-and-mouse with a man willing and ready to kill all three at the drop of a sound. “Don’t Breathe” is written and directed by Fede Alvarez, and is rated R for terror, violence, disturbing content, and adult language including sexual references.

“Don’t Breathe” is a grasp of tension-filled air that never lets you down in the number of solid thrills and brutal consequences that it delivers. It’s a three-course meal of claustrophobia, strong pacing, and an unsettling musical score by Roque Banos, that never disappoints in setting the eerie tone for the movie and its characters. After coming out of this movie, I have to say that the sky is the limit for Director Fede Alvarez. This guy has been the talk of the town since creating an actual solid remake out of “Evil Dead”, and Fede was wise enough to team back up with Jane Levy for this movie, as the two of them create a solid 1-2 punch of realism within characters, as well as solid direction from Alvarez, which never fails his projects. In my opinion, “Don’t Breathe” (As dumb a title as that is) is the best in the young career of this promising director. This movie feels like something that could be made so simply, but Alvarez takes his time crafting a slow burn game of emotional puppet strings with his audience. What results is a well crafted shriek-fest to end out the Summer movie season.

What’s different for a movie like this and the script it entails, is that it makes its characters feel very human in dissection. People are going to have a difficult time deciding which side to take on this moral dilemma, and even my vote was changed on more than one occasion, with the ever-changing creativity within this script. Piece by piece, this movie does the kinds of things that “The Collector” never could with its characters; never substituting personal development for brutality in dozens. Throughout the crisp 83 minute runtime, Alvarez stuffs this screenplay with enough drama and troubled pasts among our characters to always keep the audience guessing on their motivations, as well as likeability. In addition to the twists and turns, there is a big bombshell dropped with about twenty minutes left of this movie that I can happily say I didn’t see coming. I did have another theory for what was the big reveal that so many critics have discussed, but I’m happy to be wrong on this one. A script that is anything but predictable is always a good touch in any modern-day chiller, and “Don’t Breathe” always kept me on the edge of my seat for the guessing game.

I want to talk a little bit about the atmospheric tension here because it’s structurally sound. Besides the borderline obvious foreshadowing of making the movie in Detroit for the positives of an abandon location, the movie casts an entrancing cloud of claustrophobic anxiety that never loosens its grip on the audience. This is Hitchcock levels of silence that makes it easy to transform and lose ourselves within the details of every situational horror that this trio of crooks find themselves in. The film toes a line of creaks and thumps, and it always succeeds in making the audience view the movie a little quieter in their experience. I am thankful that my audience was respectable for this movie, as it made the experience even easier to lose myself in. The film does have some jump scares, but it makes sense in how they are delivered here, as opposed to a typical horror movie granting a basketball the same kind of physical heft as a two-hundred pound man. I mentioned earlier that Banos score here is transfixing, and that’s mostly because it’s within his notes where the movie leans on its tension. Any great film needs a score to captivate it even further, but what Banos does here is ominously eerie. The film is played so quiet that I questioned several times if I just heard a sound or instrument injected into the scene. It’s subtle in delivery, but immense is payoff, and this film simply wouldn’t be the same without Roque’s capability to hold the audience in his hands, juggling their emotions with every surprise visually.

My only slight problem with the movie was in the obvious foreshadowing of some storyline elements that are introduced early on in the film. I won’t spoil anything for the readers, but there were more than a couple occasions where something popped up that we spent an obvious minute or two on, only to see it magically make sense later on. This gives the movie an ounce of predictability that I could’ve done without. I understand some elements of symbolism and irony within the constant changing of locations and opportunities for escape within the house, but it sometimes paints an unnecessary picture for what’s coming next. Thankfully, this movie does an opening foreshadowing scene better than others, as very little is given away with where we end up 83 minutes later. Other than this, there wasn’t an aspect that I didn’t enjoy in the movie, and that even includes a young cast that go above and beyond the directing from a top-class director.

Jane Levy once again magnifies the most out of her troubled characters. You realize that there shouldn’t be as much to the characters she plays, but it’s Jane’s ability to capture the very essence of fright within a scene that makes her one of the most sought after horror/suspense actresses working today. Dylan Minnette is someone who has always played it safe to me in the roles he takes on, but here he takes a necessary risk that paid off brilliantly for the young adult. The chemistry behind Levy and Minnette is orchestrated beautifully between them, giving us something early on to root for when they are together, even if they are a couple of scum bags alone. The performance of the night however, goes to Stephen Lang for his portrayal of a blind man that felt very authentic. Lang channels an inner sorrow to his already tragic visual appearance, and you really feel for this man who is permanently in the dark, fighting out against an unseen enemy that breaks into his territory. What I loved most about Lang’s performance is the air of menace that poked out a little bit at a time, setting up a cat-and-mouse game that got very physical and unsettling in the film’s finale. There were things about Lang that made me legitimately uneasy, and that’s the mark of any good antagonist….if you can call him that.

Overall, “Don’t Breathe” is a wonderfully paced exercise in quiet plotting that feels sharp and savvy for its tribute to classic horror films that always put tension first. With Alvarez’s newest winner, we see all of the pieces in the beginning, but the real charm is watching them being put together by a cast whose emotional register is only surpassed by the brutality they entail. A satisfying home invasion thriller that never overstays its welcome.

9/10