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Don’t Breathe 2
(Screen Gems/Stage 6 Pictures/Ghost House Pictures)
By Lucas Allen
2016’s “Don’t Breathe” was a nail-biting, suspenseful horror film that set the home invasion subgenre on its head by making the victim a formidable foe for the young intruders. The idea of a sequel seems ludicrous unless there’s a way to continue the story after how the first film ended. This time, the task falls to co-writer and director Rodo Sayagues and co-writer Fede Alvarez (who previously directed the original) to deliver a worthy follow-up.
The Blind Man himself Norman (Stephen Lang) now lives in a new home with a young girl named Phoenix (Madelyn Grace) he adopted as his daughter. He’s not simply being a dad, he also has her doing survival exercises as a way of keeping her safe from any outside danger. His friend Hernandez (Stephanie Arcila) however believes that the little girl deserves a normal childhood. One night, a gang of goons led by the creepy Raylan (Brendan Sexton III) breaks into the house with intent of kidnapping Phoenix. Despite Norman gaining an advantage over them, the gang eventually kidnaps the girl and leaves the Blind Man to perish in a house fire.
After arriving at an abandoned hotel, Raylan assures Phoenix that they have a special connection and he doesn’t intend to harm her. That is, until it’s revealed that he has special plans involving a corrupt surgeon (Steffan Rhodri) and a woman (Fiona O’Shaughnessy) dying of organ failure. Now it’s Norman’s turn to break in and try once more to outwit the bad guys before saving his one chance for a peaceful existence.
There may have been several different ways to have written a good follow-up to the first film, especially when it involves The Blind Man or the main survivor. Any of those would have been better than this half-baked sequel. First of all, it all feels disconnected from the original film like there’s a big gap of a story missing between the films that couldn’t be explained. Also, if their intent was to make a darker film than before, then they seem to go ridiculously too far at times that makes it shockingly stupid. Not to mention, the motivations for the villains become dumber the more you think about it no matter what their true intentions were.
Having The Blind Man be this film’s hero (or anti-hero whatever your viewpoint is) is also a question mark left on the mind of the viewer. It’s difficult to see him as the blind, old man version of John McClane without thinking of the horrible actions the character made in the first film. It’s especially unbelievable that this direction was done by the filmmakers when it could’ve been done better than the way this movie was quickly made to be released during the pandemic. By the end, we’re supposed to be feeling empathetic towards him, but this sort of thing would’ve been more appropriate for a character like Rambo rather than a horror movie villain.
That’s the biggest problem with this movie is that it feels less of a horror movie and more of an action-packed exploitation film. It’s not scary, and whatever fresh and good about the first film was thrown out the window. Then you have this poor little girl who went through as much mental and physical trauma throughout this whole film, she’ll need decades of therapy after it’s all been done. In the end, this sequel to “Don’t Breathe” makes last May’s “Spiral” feel like a proper Saw sequel than this film calling itself a sequel.
The only positive one can say about this film is Lang returning to the character with the same ferocious intensity as before, while expressing both pain and regret for what he did in the past. The rest of the cast aren’t all that interesting as they’re going through the motions without adding anything unique. However, the young Grace seems to be trying her very best making something at least good out of her role.
At the end of the day, “Don’t Breathe 2” is the sophomore slump of horror sequels equaling that of “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” or “Exorcist II: The Heretic.” Nothing more to say except stick with the first film.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for strong bloody violence, gruesome images, and language)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 1.75 Stars (Out of Four)
