In Hollywood in 2016, there was a dark horse of the year that was both acclaimed and well-received. The freshness of rotten tomatoes is 88%, and the IMDb score is 7.1.
When it premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, it was recognized as “the most exciting thriller in 20 years.”
It costs 9.9 million and has a cumulative global box office of US$157 million. In 2016, the Hollywood summer file killed “Suicide Squad” and won the North American box office weekly title.
This small-cost thriller with the ultimate audiovisual experience and anti-routine plot is popular all over the world called “Don’t Breathe”.
After five years, the dark horse that blew up the summer vacation returns to the big screen, is it the return of the king or the stern?
Stop talking nonsense and talk about the belated sequel-“Don’t Breathe 2”
Everything has to start with “Don’t Breathe”.
The protagonist is three thieves. During a theft, they targeted the blind veteran, Norman, who lives alone.
Norman’s daughter had just been killed in a car accident and received a huge amount of compensation.
Three uninvited guests sneaked into the old house like a ghost house, only to find that it was a terrible hell.
The seemingly weak Norman has senses and fighting skills beyond ordinary people, and can be called the strongest blind person on the surface.
The little hairy thief is reduced to a turtle in the urn, and cat and mouse games generally desperately escape.
They also accidentally discovered the perverted secret of Norman’s destruction…
The sequel “Don’t Breathe 2”, the plot does not continue directly, only inherits the previous character.
Related Post: The horror film “Don’t Breathe 2” reveals a trailer.
Popular villain Norman is promoted to the protagonist, still an image of a blind veteran with moral flaws and full combat effectiveness.
A few years later, Norman had another daughter, Phoenix.
His daughter lives in an isolated suburb with him. Under his training, he learns fighting skills and has little contact with the outside world.
No one knows why he is so paranoid to avoid the world, and he is always silent about his daughter’s life experience.
Until the daughter was stared at by the strange uncle on the side of the road.
A group of well-trained veterans followed, and they broke into Norman’s home with live ammunition, aiming to capture his daughter Phoenix alive.
Why did Phoenix call for the hunt? Can Norman handle the killer army?
What secret does Norman hide to keep the evil spirits of the past?
The bloody slaughter of the blind veteran Norman began…
The reason why the “Don’t Breathe” series broke out in Hollywood is that it has become a dark horse of word of mouth at the box office.
Credit to the core aspect of the two swords going slant.
“Don’t Breathe 2” one of the highlights is the high-concept thriller setting of sensory deprivation.
Whether it’s “A Quiet Place” that dies when you hear it out, “Hush” that dies when you hear it or “Bird Box” that dies when you see it.
Recently, more and more low-cost thrillers have begun to make a fuss about the audiovisual experience of sensory deprivation.
It seems unconventional, but the tradition continues.
Alfred Hitchcock put forward the “bomb theory” more than half a century ago.
If a bomb suddenly explodes under the table while two people are talking, the audience will not be surprised, and the story will not be suspenseful.
But if the audience is informed in advance that the bomb exists, but the talker does not know it, the audience will always be worried about the character before the explosion.
Opening the audience to the pre-determined crisis that erupts at any time from the perspective of God can always intensify the suspense and become full of horror.
Alfred Hitchcock uses the “Don’t Breathe” series as an example. The blind veteran has limited vision but superhuman hearing.
The sound is like a “bomb”, no matter the floor noise or the ringing of a mobile phone, the small sound can kill people at any time.
The enclosed ancient house was full of sounders, hunters swaggered past, and the prey did not dare to take a breath for fear of being discovered.
The sound effects create a murderous step by step, as the name implies, “hold your breath”.
Norman, a blind veteran, is played by Colonel Stephen Lang, who performed “The Coolest Three Bars in History” in “Avatar”.
The old man is 69 years old this year and still maintains the good figure of a devil muscle man.
Norman has a classic silhouette and a violent personality. If you can do it, you don’t force it, and you don’t persuade people with reason but with physics. Blindness is his limitation and his method of murder.
In the previous game, Norman, as the villain, is more like a monster in traditional thrillers.
Turning off the lights and powering off, he hunted in the dark based on experience and hearing in an invisible environment.
Such as hacking and killing the deadly murderer in the movie, you can always give a jump scare.
In the sequel, Norman, as the protagonist, is more like a murder weapon in criminal action movies.
Listen to the position and track the prey, snipe and kill in the air.
Such as the aging and blind version of Jason Charles Bourne (The Bourne Identity), which is full of combat skills, and everything in the world is a weapon.
He is cruel and deadly.
To protect the homeland, I will be punishable.
The second aspect is the extremely evil morality of good and evil.
In the “Don’t Breathe” series, there is no pure distinction between good and evil, and each character is in a complicated human dilemma.
Where there is absolute good and evil, everything is caused by circumstances.
In the previous work, the audience initially assumed that the thief who steals disabled veterans should be judged as heinous in the moral trial.
But when they changed from hunters to prey, and were besieged and killed by vicious veterans, it was inevitable that the crime of sympathy would not end here.
Is the villain Norman? This morbid, evil, merciless killer seems to be the real villain.
But when he explained the tragedy of fate and the reasons for revenge, it was difficult for the audience not to fight for him: What is the crime of proper defense?
The same is true for the sequel.
Norman, who was promoted to the protagonist, was given the tender aura of Tiehan’s father.
But viewers who have seen the previous work know that he is troubled by the pain of his deceased daughter, and that this daughter is bound to have a wrong path.
Should the benevolent and selfless “kidnapping criminals” be praised?
Different stances have different attitudes. When the fans in the movie discussion area should occupy the moral high ground torn apart.
The screenwriter who hid her mouth and snickered and dissociated the ambiguous moral values from the gray area of human nature, interpreting Holmes’s famous saying:
When the law cannot bring justice to the parties, private retaliation is justified and even noble.
The audience is not blind to see clearly
“Don’t Breathe 2” has a more luxurious cost budget than its predecessors, more violent killings, and a more complete plot.
It was supposed to be an all-round upgrade in business and art, but it seems that the result is not ideal.
“Don’t Breathe 2” Douban 6.8 (previous work 7.1) is not on the street, but it is enough to realize that word of mouth is regressing.
The main reason is that the main difference between the two films before and after is the reversal of creative thinking: “Don’t Breathe 2” has been transformed from an anti-routine suspense thriller into a traditional crime action film.
The advantage is to raise the lower limit of the film.
There are dimly lit and narrow and crowded scene spaces in the movie, creating a claustrophobic old house that is stressful for the movie.
A five-minute long peekaboo scene can still remind the audience of the intense experience of “Don’t Breathe”.
There are also Roger Deakins (“Blade Runner 2049” and “1917” photographers) photography style, gorgeous vision created by colorful fog and immersed light and shadow.
Entering the empty space, Norman, who is looming in the thick fog, is even more ghostly threatening.
In the sequel, Norman is no longer just hunting at home, implying that the house was burned by gangsters like a change of style.
Just like there is no old Daredevil or blind Liam Neeson (Taken), bravely rushing into the dangerous and unfamiliar Tiger Den Longtan.
Twenty years later… Facing a powerful enemy with online IQ and armed forces, he has more opportunities to demonstrate the methods of killing.
The killer squad in front came and Norman pretended to be a corpse, lying still in the middle of the water.
The ripples from the bottom of the team’s feet spread to Norman, the old blind soldier, the god-level, operated six shots per second, and the three people under the tower were killed.
Ripple is positioned to kill opponents in seconds, and the comical violence is an exclusive scene that belongs only to Norman.
The disadvantage is that it limits the upper limit of the movie.
Fish and bear’s paw can’t have both. When extreme violence brings hormonal stimulation to the audience, it is naturally impossible to show the cramped tension at the same time.
The bloody killing in the second half of “Don’t Breathe 2” dispelled the horror core that the previous book was proud of.
The transformation of action movies led to a series of chain reactions.
The sequel attempts to turn Norman into a John Wick-style anti-hero killer (he happens to have a dog too).
It is assumed that he cannot be lonely and defeated like Zatoichi, nor can he lose the fetters of the father and daughter of “Leon”.
After the white and weak three points, the terrifying aura of the big devil is weakened, and the image of the tough old father cannot withstand pondering.
In the end there was only a sigh: Never mess with dog owners.
After all, “Don’t Breathe 2” is not bad.
Fans are disappointed that the innovative series is quickly swallowed by the market, tending to be conservative and difficult to surpass.
“Don’t Breathe 2” is a simple, crude and compact popcorn cool film, which can bring basic hormonal stimulation and is worth watching.
The ending egg revealed that the “Don’t Breathe” series will not end here, or a “Saw”-style longevity thriller series will be created.
As for whether the sequel will return to horror, or will it go further and further on the road of action crime?
Don’t Breathe , stay tuned.
Related Post: “Don’t Breathe 2” releases the Dark AF Restricted trailer.
