Fede Alvarez’ 2016 horror hit Don’t Breathe was a taut, inventive thriller that wasn’t afraid to get dark with its story of thieves who unwittingly find themselves up against a blind man who is far from the helpless stereotype they thought – a fast paced romp that wrapped its story up perfectly. Naturally Hollywood – never content to let a story end on its own merits if it smells a pay check – has brought back the property and Stephen Lang’s blind antagonist for an unnecessary sequel under the direction of the first film’s writer Rodo Sayagues. While Sayagues tries his best to take the story in an interesting direction – positioning Lang’s unnamed antagonist as a protector this time around – the audience is never truly invested, thanks to the character’s horrific actions in the first film and a lacklustre story that never feels like it was begging to be made.
We open in a similar manner to the first film, with a young girl ominously wandering down a quiet Detroit street before collapsing. Cut to 8 years later and that girl, Phoenix (Madelyn Grace), is now undergoing intense survival training as part of her home-schooling regime with her father – Lang’s raspy and grizzled unnamed blind man – and dreaming of interacting with other kids her age. When she is given the chance to accompany a business friend of her fathers around the city, Phoenix unwittingly attracts the attention of shady gangster Raylan (Brendan Sexton III) and his crew, unknowingly leading them back to the house where they launch an all-out assault in an attempt to kidnap Phoenix and kill the blind man. What seems like an obvious kidnapping, however, takes on a more complicated form when secrets about Raylan and the blind man are revealed, forcing Phoenix’s protector to risk everything on a violent crusade to save his daughter.
The biggest hurdle Don’t Breathe 2 has to overcome is the repositioning of Stephen Lang’s blind man as a hero after the horrifying deeds he carried out in the series’ first instalment. That film clearly painted the blind man as someone beyond saving; who had undergone terrible things in his life but who had ultimately surrendered to the darkness, raping and murdering to ensure that his lineage continued. A well-rounded character sure, the rare horror villain with a multi-faceted backstory, but one that doesn’t leave much room for a redemption arc. That doesn’t stop Sayagues from trying, and pairing the blind man with Phoenix is a tried and tested way to do it, just look at Logan.
But what worked for that character, who was always positioned as a hero before the filmmakers told (but never showed) us about the horrific deeds he committed, doesn’t apply here. It’s like taking Michael Myers fresh off his 1979 debut and asking audiences to now root for him as he teams up with the very teens he sought to kill. Give that to the fans after an endless stream of increasingly goofy sequels and you might have something fun on your hands, but right off the bat that tonal shift is too jarring. Here, Sayagues skews closely to the original’s tone, using the same music and similar sets to recreate the claustrophobic feeling of that film, only now they are asking us to accept that the guy who tried to forcefully impregnate a woman with a turkey baster is good because he has a daughter? That’s a tough moral compromise to ask of your audience and the film lets viewers think that she could be the product of this horrific act for far longer than it should – not a winning move to get you rooting for the blind murderer.
Without that emotional connection at its core, the film is forced to rely on the horror to entertain and, for the most part, this is standard horror sequel stuff: a jump scare here and there – nothing that breaks the mold. But when it comes to gore and unflinching depictions of violence, Sayagues demonstrates all that he has learned from Alvarez to blood-curdling effect, enough to have this usually strong stomached horror fan recoiling from the screen at times. The direction also stands out, with a particularly impressive one-take during the initial invasion keeping you on your toes as Phoenix sneaks and dodges her potential captors at every turn: a rarity in a genre that usually resigns sequels to a painfully uninspired formula.
Don’t Breathe 2 isn’t a bad horror sequel, doing just enough interesting things with the direction and gore to keep it out of that category. But for a film that doesn’t feel like it needed to be made in the first place, Rodo Sayagues’ script can’t shake the baggage of Lang’s blind protagonist and his awful earlier actions, no matter how emotional it tries to get (not very) or how evilly it positions the new gang of antagonists. Everyone loves a good redemption arc, but short of saving a burning building of school children, nothing is going to change how you feel about this bastard.
Don’t Breathe 2 stars Stephen Lang, Madelyn Grace, Adam Young, Fiona O’Shaughnessy & Brendan Sexton III – In cinemas now.