“Don’t Breathe” was created by the same staff that made 2013’s “Evil Dead” reboot. (Photo courtesy of Stage 6 Films)

Owen Johnson
Connector Staff

I found “Don’t Breathe” to be a very appropriate way to end a lackluster summer movie season that started out looking a little promising. What I mean by that is that “Don’t Breathe” starts out promising, then falls apart by the end.

In a desperate attempt to get out of Detroit and move to California, three friends decide to rob a blind man (Stephen Lang), who got a large cash settlement after the accidental death of his daughter. The blind man, a veteran of the Gulf War, traps the thieves in his home, resulting in them having to try and escape.

As I said, the movie does start out promising. The premise of several people trapped inside a house with a hostile blind man is interesting and was well-handled at first. The thieves are given mild enough characterization and decent-enough motivations to the point that you can root for them. Once the movie is half-way done, however, all of this collapses.

Once the movie reaches the half-way point, it just starts getting repetitive. There are multiple times throughout the last half of the movie (maybe it was less, but it sure feels like half of the movie) that it makes you think the movie is coming to an end, and then something new happens. It does this so much, I think it broke the record previously held by “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” for the most ‘The End… Wait!’ moments. Then, when the movie finally does end, its ending is the least satisfying of all of the potential endings that were offered.

It’s not just the story that does this. Several characters seemingly meet their end, only to come back later on.

The movie feels like it is trying to be an unconventional horror movie, with its different antagonist and the characters’ actions being mostly believable. Once the end (the real end) is reached, all of this goes away. The characters begin acting like morons, and the antagonist becomes a generic crazy man. Even the simple charm of these thieves trying to avoid a certifiable blind man by trying to remain as silent as possible is ruined when a big reveal happens two-thirds of the way through.

The only constant praiseworthy quality of the movie is the sound editing. As the protagonists have to be quiet in order to survive, every sound they make from their quiet breathing to them stepping on a squeaky floorboard is amplified to build the atmosphere and tension.

While there were definitely worse movies released this year, especially this summer, “Don’t Breathe” is easily one of the more annoying and anger-inducing ones. It continuously gets your hopes up, just to let you down, and with the entire second half of the movie comprising of false endings, the movie easily feels double its length.