The horror genre has flourished throughout the 2010s and 2020s, and one of the best horror movies from the period has finally returned to streaming. The past few years in the genre have seen major horror hits hit the big screen, including Robert Eggers’ The Witch and James Wan’s growing The Conjuring Universe, to more recent hits like Zach Cregger’s Weapons and the recent Stephen King adaptation The Monkey. Back in 2016, another great horror film packing plenty of tension and suspense took the horror genre by storm, even earning a sequel.
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That movie is Don’t Breathe, and following a period of being absent from any major streaming platform, Fede Álvarez’s 2016 horror hit is available on Peacock as of October 15th. The movie stars Stephen Lang as a blind man who becomes the target of a robbery by a group of teens who believe he’ll be an easy hit, only to find themselves in a fatal game of cat and mouse. The movie spawned a sequel, Don’t Breathe 2, in 2021 that centered around The Blind Man and his adopted daughter as they’re ambushed by a vengeful stranger emerges from the past. Unfortunately, that movie is not available on Peacock and is currently only streaming on Starz.
Don’t Breathe Is a Masterclass in Suspense and Tension, but Its Sequel Doesn’t Hold Up
Don’t Breathe was considered to be one of 2016’s best horror movies, and the film even holds a “Certified Fresh” distinction on Rotten Tomatoes with an impressive 88% critic score. A gripping and effective thriller that subverts the typical home invasion narrative by making the intruders the prey, the movie successfully works to craft a slow-burn sense of dread and suspense through the cat-and-mouse dynamic between The Blind Man and the intruders rather than relying on cheap jump scares. The direction, cinematography, and sound design work together to sustain and pull viewers into the tension and create a claustrophobic and disorienting situation, led by memorable performances from a cast that includes Lang, Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, and Daniel Zovatto.
Don’t Breathe 2 isn’t a bad movie, audiences even gave it an even better 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but it failed to reach the same heights as the original, something common for horror sequels. Lang once again proves to be a formidable and commanding presence in the role of The Blind Man, and the movie delivers in intense, gory action, but it falters when it comes to recapturing the original’s fresh take on the home-invasion genre and core tension.
The film suffers from a forced and disconnected storyline that stripped away the claustrophobic tension and less-is-more approach of the first by shifting from horror confined almost exclusively to a single setting to a wider scope, moving it away from a suspenseful, slow-burn into a brutal action film. Don’t Breathe 2 is still an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but it falls into the category of sequels that didn’t need to be made in the first place.
Other Horror Movies Now on Peacock
Peacock has plenty of streaming options for horror fanatics this October. Peacock subscribers can now stream Dead Silence, Fright Night, The Mist, Poltergeist, Slither, and 1941’s The Wolf Man, as well as lighter horror and horror-adjacent options such as Edward Scissorhands, Ghostbusters, Monster House, and Scary Movie.
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Image courtesy of Lucasfilm
