Don’t Breathe 2 Star on His Character “Paying for His Sins” in Sequel

In 2016’s Don’t Breathe, audiences saw a group of intruders break into a blind man’s home, only for the events of that film to reveal that this character (Stephen Lang) was hiding some horrifying secrets, making him function both as a villain and as an antihero defending him home, leading some fans to ponder how a sequel could focus on the “Blind Man” and portray him as the protagonist. According to Lang, his character has seemingly undergone an evolution since we last saw him and has somewhat atoned for his questionable behavior, exploring a moral grey area. Don’t Breathe 2 is slated to hit theaters on August 13th.

“We must have a problem with the communication because I thought I heard you say that Norman is an ‘evil dude.’ I mean, I don’t know how you could possibly think that at all,” Lang joked to ComicBook.com. “Norman has his issues. Norman is troubled, definitely. I think that the Norman of the new, of the sequel … He certainly has gone through the fire. He’s learned some very hard lessons. It seems to me that he’s paid, to an extent, for some of his sins. He hasn’t paid fully, the price is not fully paid. Hopefully, it is by the end of this.”

He continued, “He has … I think he’s deepened and I think that he’s developed and I think he’s acquired … some kind of, in his brain, stuff that was dormant.”

Audiences might have initially sympathized with Lang’s character in the earlier moments of the original Don’t Breathe, up until viewers learned that he had kept a woman captive in his basement and had been sexually assaulting her in hopes of getting her pregnant. This follow-up film was previously described, “In the years following the deadly home invasion, the Blind Man lives in quiet solace until his past sins catch up to him.”

Given that the trailers for the new film show him caring for a young girl who is kidnapped by unidentified assailants, fans remain curious about how he came to care for this girl, as well as wonder why we should hope that Lang’s character is the person this girl should be returned to, based on what we’ve seen him do to other women.

Don’t Breathe 2 hits theaters on August 13th.

Are you looking forward to the new film? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!