They call it ‘mumblegore’,
apparently. Taking some facets of the
largely dull ‘mumblecore’ movement (naturalism, un-cinematic, a focus on the mundane) and applying them to the more insalubrious,
supernatural and downright nasty aspects of life, it’s much more interesting
than watching young, unemployed New Yorkers argue. Like any good movement, people will rarely
make a film to deliberately fit into it, and the aesthetic criteria at work are
a little more vague than the more obvious movements; say, film noir, or the
frat comedies of the early 00s. With a
focus on real situations, naturalistic acting and atmosphere over arterial
spills, the ‘gore’ part of the name is often more pun than it is particularity.
The movement has produced some
cracking films so far, with the likes of The
Babadook, In Fear, Creep (not the one set on the subway), Kill List and It Follows all bringing interesting new ideas to the table at a
time when mainstream horrors are deliberate throwbacks like Insidious and The Conjuring. Fede Alvarez’
Don’t Breathe is a worthy addition to
the canon, offering a great concept (amateur burglars bite off more than they
can chew when they target a blind but resourceful war vet), jumps, almost
constant tension, and some moments of genuine unpleasantness. It also has a post-crash Michigan setting
where the urban decay adds so much to the atmosphere and sense of isolation and
desperation.
It starts badly. We meet the three thieves mid-robbery in a
scene which establishes the characters, all of whom are either flirting with or
balls-deep inside cliché. Daniel Zovatto’s
Money (yes, he’s really called that) is all baggy pants, cornrows,
expletive-spewing bravado. If nobody
else in the film had wanted to kill him, I would have done it. Rocky (Jane Levy) is his girlfriend: horrible
home life (abusive mum with swastika-tattoo boyfriend) but a little sister to
save, she wants one last job to set
her up for leaving it all behind. Dylan
Minnette’s Alex has a crush on her and facilitates the jobs while chickening
out every few minutes. For 20-odd
minutes, I was getting both annoyed and bored at the same time.
I should have had more faith. From the second their mark, played by an
impressively cut Stephen Lang, sits up in bed and fixes a blind stare on Money as
he creeps around the room, Don’t Breathe
is a tension machine. The predator is
blind, so the burglars quickly become acutely aware of the sounds they
make. This careful manipulation of one
sense is inspired. The recent Lights Out tried to do it with, well,
light, and it worked until the film started reading from the Third Act
Textbook. Don’t Breathe just plain works. As soon as you think you’re heading for a
seen-it-before climax, it throws a curveball made from a turkey baster and
sample jar (yes, really). Any sympathies you might have had are rapidly
questioned.
Alvarez exerts a demonic control over
the audience, showing you details you’ll need to refer to later (a hammer, a
padlocked room, a hidden gun, a crawl space between floors), evoking sympathy
for Lang’s unnamed character before making him both terrifying and repulsive. It’s largely set within one house and Alvarez
by turns gives characters reason to leave, go back in, and then traps them
within when they want to escape. By this
time, he’s done enough to make you like the characters just enough to give a sense of threat.
His hidden weapon is Lang. A damaged combat vet and victim of personal
tragedy, we know he’s sitting on a cash fortune and find out a lot more as
matters unfold. Lang’s performance,
almost wordless for much of the film, is believable and complex. You believe he has both the skill and
motivation to kill; his blindness is played well, being both hindrance and advantageous
to him as well as a nifty plot device; and when he does speak his voice sounds
like a jagged chasm. As monsters go, you
begin to feel for him as well as being scared that he’d choke you to death for
looking at his dog.
Alas, the third act
does throw in the odd horror cliché, namely the to-be-expected sequences where
previously hapless characters suddenly find A-Team levels of resourcefulness
when the story suits them. This doesn’t
really spoil anything, though, and the final denouement is satisfyingly
downbeat and low-key, the end leaving a chill without dangling the obligatory
sequel threads.
It’s hard to make an
effective horror these days. No other genre succumbs to the weight of
expectation so much; a disadvantage when the purpose is to shock and
surprise. More so than the found footage
and torture porn sub-genres, the loose tropes of the mumblegore movement are
more a canvas than a set of formulae. Don’t
Breathe, while not as masterpiece, is a fine picture on that canvas. But painted in blood. By a blind guy.
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