“Don’t Breathe” is an interesting horror/thriller that defies many tropes. While I think all the materials for a great movie are there, it just never quite gripped me in the way that I hoped it would. There was even one plot element, which I won’t spoil, that made me chuckle. A lot of this movie is effective yet I had hoped for a little more after hearing all the praise it has received.

In this film, Rocky (Jane Levy “Evil Dead”), Alex (Dylan Minnette “Prisoners”, “Let Me In”) and Money (Daniel Zovatto “Lady Bird”) are burglars, who decide to hit one last house in Michigan before Rocky and Money leave for California. They think it will be easy to rob a blind Gulf War veteran (Stephen Lang “Avatar”, “Manhunter”), who is apparently sitting on a fortune after receiving compensation from the government. However, this old man has dark secrets of his own.

While the three burglars are not badly written or anything like that, I didn’t massively care one way or another if they escaped. You initially feel bad for the old man but once you realise just how sick and twisted this man is, you’ll see he’s the real villain. He also has a vicious dog. Whenever the old man isn’t the current problem, the dog is after them.

“Don’t Breathe” has some unsettling ideas in it and I think it does a reasonable job of creating an intense situation. Due to the very realistic nature of this movie, I found it to be more unnerving than a film such as “It Follows”. Still, I cannot help but feel “Don’t Breathe” could have been better. I’m not exactly sure how but it just didn’t quite shock me in the way that films such as “Audition” or “Split” did. I’m still giving “Don’t Breathe” a modest recommendation.