After joining forces to terrify us in Evil Dead, actress Jane Levy and director Fede Alvarez team up to bring the terror once again with one of the most wildly original horror flicks we have seen in some time, Don’t Breathe. The must-see flick has landed on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download.
The film, which debuted at number one at the box office when it landed in theaters this past summer (and remained there for two consecutive weeks) stars Levy, along with Goosebumps star Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto and Stephen Lang (who could forget him from his turn in Avatar). Lang, in particular, gives the most haunting of performances as a blind man whose house is broken into by a group of youngsters, led by Levy, and who quickly turns the tables on them in a terrifying game of cat and mouse where the scares seem to come from the most unexpected of places.
The film is a classic example of when a group of characters underestimate their foe and that antagonist winds up the one holding all the cards. Without giving too much away, there is also a twist that you will never see coming and is also one of the most rewarding twists in recent memory.
Director Alvarez leads the way as he introduces five fascinating featurettes that contribute to a bonus features section that is an utter delight in how it shines a light on the making of an instant horror classic.
The first, No Escape, is an almost three minute look at how star Levy looked at this film as if it was a graphic novel come to life. That is a sentiment that is shared by the cinematographer, who insisted on a realism that would only add to increasing the fear factor. Alvarez’s contributes to this featurette in a way that has us looking at the house itself as almost a character that has its own role to play in the terror.
Creating the Creepy House delves further into that facet as the production designer of Don’t Breathe takes us behind-the-scenes of the making of the set and the actors add their commentary as to how that haunting home contributed to shaping their performance and characterizations.
Speaking of the cast, Meet the Cast is a short, but sweet, four-minute spotlight on the cast and the backstory that each brought to their role and how that impacted the performance we witness on the screen. Actor Lang gets a beautiful spotlight in Man in the Dark. He reports how he saw his blind man with a secret as almost an urban legend come to life and how he balanced the fine line between playing a victim while simultaneously portraying him as someone who fights back… with a vengeance. The other actors also chime in on Lang and share their fear of him, starting with the contacts he had to wear, and then the performance he gave that only enhanced the chill-inducing turn by the Avatar veteran.
The final featurette introduced by the helmer is The Sounds of Horror, which is a delightful look at the score and how the main composer used music to further enhance the visual scares from the house itself and also Lang.
There are eight deleted scenes that are included in the DVD and Blu-Ray release of Don’t Breathe and with Alverez’s introduction to each; one can see how they would have fit into the story and more importantly, why they were cut.
A must watch/hear for a second viewing is the audio commentary track. This is clearly the director’s film and with the stellar performance by Lang and the script by co-writer Rodo Sayagues, their backing up Alvarez’s wicked imagination, their contribution to the commentary is also quite welcomed.
Film Grade: A-
Bonus Features: B+