After a long hiatus, I’m back! F**k COVID-19! F**k depression! F**k self-doubt. Then again, who knows when these things will rear their ugly heads again and lead to more time on the sidelines. But even Peter Parker gave up being Spider-Man for a while (in the Sam Raimi films no less), and am I better than Spider-Man? Hell no.
With a notorious organ-harvester on the loose, a group of thugs set their sights on Phoenix (Madelyn Grace); a little girl with an over-protective father and swirling questions regarding her mother before she died. The thugs track Phoenix back to her home, and realising that her father is blind, think what will follow will be a pretty simple abduction; but oh no, little do they realise that they’re messing with a former Navy SEAL, and a blind man with his own previously deadly experiences warding off those who come into his home. Since Norman Nordstrom (Stephen Lang) will go to all lengths to protect his daughter, these intruders are in for a rough night – think Home Alone, but taking place within the DCEU. Rodo Sayagues directs, with the writer and director of the first Don’t Breathe, Fede Alvarez, writing this one as well.
Admittedly, it took me a little while to orientate myself as to whether this movie was meant to be a direct sequel to the first movie or a prequel, as in both scenarios it could make sense for Nordstrom to have a daughter. If it was up to me, I think I would have been opted to write a prequel, because this movie is always pushing up hill to turn ‘The Blind Man’ into a likable John-Wick-type character, when we’ve seen him do things in Don’t Breathe that are completely irredeemable – I know Nordstrom’s original daughter died of a hit-and-run, but maybe she got caught up with some shady people before the accident, that led to her being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that has Nordstrom out for retribution. It’s strange to have a sequel that follows the ‘monster’, right? I mean, even franchises like A Nightmare on Elm Street, where Freddy Kruger is the star, still compose a new crop of protagonists each movie, and don’t aim to flip our sympathies. It’s surprising that Rocky, the girl from the first Don’t Breathe, isn’t the focus here again, as the surviving heroine. And on top of this, who asks, ‘you know that guy who rapes teenagers? What’s his next chapter; what’s he up to these days?’? Maybe you were; I wasn’t.
But we get what we get, and I didn’t really get into this movie until the third act. From a technical point of view, even though the first Don’t Breathe isn’t a favourite of mine either, I think it does a really great job of outlining the layout of the house, and preparing us for the challenges that lay ahead for the intruding teens on that fateful night. I keep saying this when it comes to horror/thrillers and perhaps any movie in fact – it’s usually a major benefit to outline the parameters and rules within the movie before the upcoming conflict begins. This movie doesn’t do very well with that and suffers, and as these thugs ascend upon Nordstrom’s home, it’s like the action jumps from inside the house, to what I think was the neighbour’s garage, to the basement (where Nordstrom gets in undetected somehow), to an extended part of the basement, to a random greenhouse, without any way of knowing where we could pop up next. There’s one tracking shot of Phoenix moving around the house that felt the most like the first Don’t Breathe in technical aptitude, but consider me a carpenter, because I really could have used the house-plan. This one scene is also a little reminiscent of Panic Room; a David Fincher movie with a similar premise. But it’s not like I really wanted a repeat of the first movie anyway, and it’s only in the third act that I embraced the reality of two disgusting opposing sides ripping shreds off each other for my enjoyment. And kudos on the movie’s darkest story point I never thought I’d see – if you think non-consensual insemination is gross, then this movie might have one scene on an operating table that lives up to the franchise perfectly.
So yeah, this kid is growing up in rougher circumstances than Natalie Portman in Leon: The Professional, and surrounded by more terrifying depravity than Dorothy Gale in Return to Oz (and I was already thinking of Leon: The Professional before Raylan (Brendon Sexton III) answers the question of how many men should attack the blind man with ‘ALL OF THEM!’, which is clearly in homage to Gary Oldman’s ‘EVERYONE!’ or the biggest coincidence of all time). There’s a story not being told here, where I think the blind man held a house in a dilapidated estate in the first movie because he needed seclusion to do the dirty to get a daughter, but here, Nordstrom and Phoenix find themselves in a very rough neighbourhood because Rocky stole Nordstrom’s money, and this is all he can afford. Since we like Phoenix; shame on Rocky, give his money back! Poor Phoenix; but I thought Madelyn Grace was very believable as the child-actress in her part.
2.0
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