Horrorthon 2018 Day 6 - Don't Breathe (2016)

  I don't think this is the best American horror film in the last 20 years, but it's not bad.

A gang of three thieves have been committing robberies around Detroit.  Alex (Dylan Minette) lifts the keys from his father's home security business, then he and his two friends let themselves in, boost non-cash items, and then trigger the alarm on their way out.  Alex is very conscientious about there being no one in the house and only robbing those that can afford the insurance.  Rocky (Jane Levy) is just doing this to get enough money for her and her little sister to get out of Detroit forever and Money (Danial Zovatto), well, he just wants money.  So of course it's Money who picks the house of a blind Gulf War veteran (Stephen Lang) as their next and hopefully last target.  He knows that the blind man received a massive cash settlement when his daughter was killed by a rich family and that it's just sitting in the house, waiting for them.  Despite Alex's objections, the trio break in only to discover that blind doesn't mean non-dangerous.

There's this old movie called Wait Until Dark that's about a gang of thieves who break into a blind woman's house and terrorize her.  This is like the polar opposite of that.  I've liked Jane Levy since Suburgatory and she has the makings of an excellent scream queen.  Stephen Lang is terrifying even when he's not trying to be so excellent casting all around.  There are also some really nice camera effects like when the characters' pupils are fully dilated when they are filmed in the pitch black (that's not really pitch black because it's still a movie and the audience needs to see what the fuck is happening).  Plus it's a nice little throwback to the night-vision goggles scene in The Silence of the Lambs.

I wasn't sold on the Evil Dead remake that was also directed by Fede Alvarez and starred Levy.  This is solid but also not winning any prizes for me.  I have to give it credit for maintaining tension but it never quite reached the level of horror for me.

Pumpkin rating:  3.5/5