By sheer coincidence, I screened Hold Your Breath on the same day as the recent Halle Berry picture Never Let Go. They’re essentially the same movie, in which a mother tries to protect her children from an evil force outside that may or may not be real. Despite similar subject matter, the movies couldn’t play more differently. Never Let Go creates an eerie mood and contains several effective scares, whereas Hold Your Breath is too flat and lifeless to offer any genuine chills.
The story is set in dust bowl Oklahoma during the 1930s. Sarah Paulson, in a very good performance, plays Margaret Bellum, a woman holding down the fort while her husband is away working. Dust storms pound the area, limiting visibility and leaving literal mounds of dirt outside people’s front doors. Local citizens tell a tale of the “Gray Man,” a malevolent being that can slip into your home through the dust. At first, Margaret doesn’t buy into this idea, but when a strange man named Wallace Grady (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) mysteriously shows up, she begins to think he has intentions of harming her daughters Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins).
Hold Your Breath has a very cool premise, and it makes a valiant attempt to use dust storms in a manner similar to how John Carpenter used mist in The Fog. Writer Karrie Crouse and her co-director William Joines have no idea what to do with those elements, though. The Gray Man legend isn’t exploited enough to be scary. For that reason, no real suspense is generated from wondering if Grady is good or evil. In fact, he’s so underdeveloped as a character that his sole purpose seems to be providing the movie with a gimmick.
Pacing is an additional issue. The film is trying to be more a psychological horror story than one that relies on blood and guts. Everything is carried out in a lethargic manner that runs completely at odds with that goal. If the audience isn’t intellectually engaged at every point, the desired suspense won’t materialize. Crouse tends to rely on a repetitive cycle: scene with dust, scene with daughters, scene with gossiping women in the town’s sewing circle, repeat.
Visually, Hold Your Breath is impressive. Effects used to show the dust storms and their subsequent devastation are done well. Not even the combination of those strong visuals and a rock-solid Sarah Paulson performance can get the stagnant story moving. The plotting is too loose, leading to more instances of apathy than of excitement.
out of four
Hold Your Breath is rated R for some violence/disturbing images. The running time is 1 hour and 34 minutes.
© 2024 Mike McGranaghan