Stephen Lang’s blind old man returns to the warpath in the film “Don’t Breathe 2,” which takes the best from the original and multiplies it.

On August 12, “Don’t Breathe 2”, the sequel to the 2015 horror-thriller beloved by audiences and critics, hits theaters. This time, the director’s chair is occupied not by Fede Álvarez, who directed the original, but by Rodo Sayagues. However, this is no cause for alarm, as Sayagues and Álvarez are the screenwriters for both films and the creators of the “Evil Dead” reboot. The duo not only replicates the original’s formula but also expands the story, adds scale, and elevates the sequel to a new level of brutality.

Invasion 2.0

A few years after the events of the original, the blind old man Norman (Stephen Lang) leads a quiet and measured life somewhere in the wilderness, raising a little girl named Phoenix (Madelyn Grace). He not only teaches her basic subjects but also imparts the fundamentals of survival. However, the sins of a dark past do not let the man go, and one fine day, a group of criminals breaks into their home, intent on kidnapping Phoenix.

If in the original film, hapless young burglars broke into Stephen Lang’s character’s home, in “Don’t Breathe 2,” they are replaced by former military men and seasoned criminals who don’t bother with trifles. Therefore, the stakes have risen, and it has become much harder for Norman to dispatch his opponents. At the same time, the killings have become more sophisticated, unpredictable, and brutal, employing not only handy tools but also bare hands. At some moments while watching the film, it might seem that no film this violent has been released in 2021.

Hero or Monster?

If “Don’t Breathe 2” had exactly replicated the original concept, it would have been too simple and uninteresting. And thank goodness Sayagues and Álvarez didn’t limit themselves to that. In the horror sequel, they continue to develop the idea of Norman’s ambiguity, who here becomes the key character (other characters from the original are absent).

In the first film, he was a brutal man, coldly defending his home, unafraid of killing, and harboring a terrible secret. Yes, the scales of his “evil” side tipped then, but not as obviously as is typical in similar genre works. In the second film, this theme is taken to a fundamentally different level, and an unexpected twist in the middle of the film might make you reassess the character’s nature once again.

Should You Watch the Film “Don’t Breathe 2”?

As Fede Álvarez said in one of the interviews promoting the new film, “Satisfaction is the result minus expectations, so if expectations are high, then the results must be even more impressive.” After watching “Don’t Breathe 2,” one can confidently assert that Álvarez himself and Rodo Sayagues, for whom this work was a directorial debut, can be satisfied. The sequel turned out to be gripping, emotional, unpredictable, and in no way inferior to the original, even considering that this time viewers know in advance what to expect.

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