The movie borrows major ideas and elements from some of cinema's best thrillers, and I mostly recalled "Panic Room" and "Wait Until Dark" as antithesis versions. The plot is almost laughably simple: 3 small-time burglars are hoping to strike it big when they hear a retired war veteran has won a settlement over the death of his daughter for upwards of $300 million. They assume the cash might be in his house, and even better is that they realize he has gone blind. These are barely kids in their 20's. Alex (the logical one of the group) uses his dad's spare keys from his security companies to disarm these homes, quietly loot various goods, and rearm the home and stage a fake robbery. Money, the wild one, is head-to-toe tattoos and carries a gun even though this could lead to a longer jail sentence should they be caught. Rocky, the heroine, sees the money as an opportunity to relocate her and her daughter to a better life. The plan is so simple.
In a run-down Detroit neighborhood where the blind man is the only house that is occupied for blocks, they quietly enter his home and begin the quiet search for a safe. The time is 2am. In the modest 2-story home, they see photographs of his deceased daughter, and he plays home movies of her as a child. Money uses a homemade gas bomb in attempts to neutralize him to sleep. Of course we know that won't work. The blind man is quickly awoken, and in a shocking moment of confrontation, his combat skills come out and he quickly murders Money, believing him to be the only robber. With Alex and Rocky standing breathless in horror, they see him board up the house from the inside out, and begin to remove the body. They are now the victims.
The story becomes a cat-and-mouse game as the blind man soon discovers that there are more intruders in his home. Blind as he is, the man is still a dominant figure, rippling with muscles and a ghostly face that shows his aged gray beard and white eyes. He passes within inches of Alex in the hallway like a ghost, and retrieving a gun from his safe, Rocky can visibly see the code to reenter at a later time. I don't know if this classifies as a thriller or horror, since much of the drama comes from the chase that ensues throughout the house. Yes, he is blind, but the old man knows this house like the back of his hand, and indeed the dark rooms are full of terrifying secrets.
The director, Fede Alvarez, is known for making "Evil Dead" in 2003, but this is a clear exercise in tone and suspense. With each new moment, he adds a new layer to the dread, and the camera floats through the house to remind us where spare guns are hiding, which windows have bars... It's a technique that someone like Alfred Hitchcock might appreciate: showing the audience more than the characters know. When they first enter the man's home, there is a steady shot of a hammer hanging on a rack of tools. Nothing becomes of it, but our minds begin racing with ideas of how this will come into play or what it might be used for. Later, we see a spare gun strapped to the underside of a bed. Only the audience knows what dangers are in store.
I won't spoil too much more of the film, only to say that the robbers' tour of the home lead to nearly every room of the home and some in between. A dark discovery in the basement finds them trapped with the blind man amongst rows and rows of shelving units, and as casually as he begins hunting them, he turns the fuse box over and leaves them in utter darkness. This scene (about midway through the film) harkened back to the chilling climax of "Silence of the Lambs" and yet raises the stakes tenfold from what Clarice Starling encountered with Buffalo Bill. We know his basement can only be so big, and we see the man wandering through the darkness touching familiar landmarks to remind himself the path he needs to take. Both Alex and Rocky are blind, shaking, barely moving forward. The scene is photographed in a smoky black & white, and the quiet breathes of the victims move in and out of earshot. Rocky moves down a hall, at the end of which slowly materializes the blind man, quietly waiting.. Listening. It's without a doubt one of the most effective horror scenes I have ever seen and the crowning achievement of the film.
The film finally sees it's own form of climax, and for me this is where it began to drag. From the old man's dog (a vicious Rottweiler with an apparent taste for human flesh) to chases back and forth inside and outside the home, I have to admit the finale of the movie became an exhausting chore to keep up with. There were many moments when it felt like the story was coming to an end, and the 'shocking' moments were realizing that it was still going. This movie requires a great suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy (the logics of this movie have to be taken with a grain of salt or I would guess one's appreciation might be somewhat lessened), and with each new "twist" I felt the movie losing it's claustrophobic feel and moving more towards a standard slasher flick with it's own set of rules and horror cliches.
Regardless, I will honestly admit this was a very fun film to experience in a theater. The photography is closed in and haunting, and the performance by Stephen Lang as the blind man is sure to become a classic in the vaults of iconic horror villains. For a movie with such a simple idea as a robbery gone wrong, boy did they get it so right. I only wish they would have pushed it further instead of drifting back to the standards a typical Hollywood revenge flick might take.
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