What a surprise it was to discover DON’t BREATHE ! It must be said that with posters announcing it as the “best horror film” and not forgetting to remind the previous work of the director, namely the reboot ofEvil Dead (film de Sam Raimi from 1981 to the original), everything was done for preparing to see a true horror film. And no, DON’t BREATHE there is nothing really terrifying, and it is so much better. Because Fede Alvarez achieves an excellent thriller, worthy of the great David Fincher, a sort of inverted version of Panic Room (2002).
In it, Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart did to rob, and found refuge in a room walled of their home. DON’t BREATHE puts him on the side of burglars. A group of three young, small strikes, not good nasty flying regularly to be able to leave the poverty of Detroit. Without lingering to try to make their acts acceptable, the film will focus on the ultimate heist. A house in the middle of a neighborhood in ruins where there is only an old soldier, now blind, with three hundred thousand dollars hidden.
Of course the things won’t happen as planned. And once inside the house, it will become difficult for the three robbers to escape the old man, still in shape, and nervous, and of providing in terms of security – barred windows and the big padlock on each door resulting in the confinement of the protagonists. If the situation would have been quickly falling into the grotesque, it is necessary to praise the work of Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues (co-writer with Alvarez), who manage to keep a lot of credibility over the scenario. From there, the developer has to do is to immerse ourselves in an atmosphere tense. It is in its staging, very successful, we found a strong influence of David Fincher. Has the image of this long scene, when the burglars enter the house. A fake shot while camera movement to occupy the entire space, we discover the place at the same time as the protagonists, using the few digital effects (to move from one floor to another) and focusing via close-ups on details, which will have importance later on. One remembers that Fincher insisted on a phone in Panic Room. In DON’t BREATHE, Alvarez carries our gaze on a lock, on the top of a closet or even on a gun hidden under a bed. A series of clues, foreshadowing the future events but we will be quick to forget, and he will, therefore, with some surprise.
“An excellent thriller, worthy of the great David Fincher, a sort of inverted version of Panic Room”
One could almost speak of the copy as the technique appears to be similar to the work of David Fincher. But it is a copy of a particularly well-realized person who has understood the essence of the film of Fincher, its usefulness and its meaning. And this is in no case free from the part of Fede Alvarez, who thinks of his film as a whole and there will not only be of a few gimmicks here and there, makes his work all the more exciting. One senses in him a genuine desire to staging, to go looking for trouble, always finding a justification for every reversal of situations. Thus, when it immerses its players in the dark – an amazing scene that is reminiscent of the Silence of The lambs – beyond the distress caused, we note that it continues in its desire to use all of the space and using the disability of his character (blind man) as a benefit. Has this staging is relevant, then adds the music composition of the great Roque Baños. A composition made of sounds of machinery, squeaks, and sounds shrill, Roque Baños manages to give off a certain musicality. By managing to link the sound and the image, which is meet to the perfection, even in its silences (particularly important), DON’t BREATHE we happe in a stifling atmosphere. The duo Fede Alvarez / Roque Baños then taking on the allure of the duo Trent Reznor / David Fincher.
They are able to keep to the end this game of hide-and-seek in a thriller, and even extend the scenario to something much more unhealthy that one could not imagine, DON’t BREATHE is a real surprise. Mastered in all of its achievement and peeling off perfectly in the image of horror movie that he was strangely stuck, you could give a slight damper on the casting half-convincing. In fact, if Jane Levy (Evil Dead, the series Suburgatory) and Stephen Lang (particularly disturbing) hold the film, the much less charismatic Dylan Minnette (Alex) and Daniel Zovatto (Money) are quite anecdotal. The fault may be the result of less attention paid to the writing of their characters, which ultimately did nothing surprising. They are limited in effect to be clichés of the cinema. But to the extent it does not prejudice the final result, forgotten even in the middle of the universe captivating by Fede Alvarez.
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