Taut home invasion thriller 'Don't Breathe' will leave you breathless

Fede Alvarez's taut home invasion thriller "Don't Breathe" achieves levels of perverse dread and unrelenting threat missing from most similar risk-averse PG-13 suspense tales.

From the opening shot - one that frivolously gives away which major character will not be dying for most of the movie - the R-rated "Don't Breathe" drops us into an ominous environment crackling with suspense, jolts and uncertainty about what will happen next.

This becomes a saving grace for a terror tale that recycles mad-slasher horror conventions. If you know your early 1980s horror movies (or have seen Wes Craven's "Scream"), you can quickly predict which of the three home invaders will be killed. (If not, the killjoy trailers bluntly reveal it.)

You'll also be able to guess who survives. (Other thriller/horror clichés will not be discussed further.)

The simple setup involves three young people who augment their sparse earnings by breaking into houses of the rich, all clients of a security company owned by the father of Alex (Dylan Minnette), who has access to the codes that bypass their security systems.

His partner Money (Daniel Zovatto) loves breaking costly possessions and urinating on expensive carpets and sheets.

Money's pragmatic girlfriend Rocky (Jane Levy) needs the cash so she can bolt from Detroit and rescue her preschool little sister from their loser, boozer mom.

Money says that a blind local war veteran has received a $300,000 settlement from an accident that killed his only daughter. Money thinks the vet has stashed the cash in his dilapidated house. It should be easy to rob him blind.

So, after drugging the vet's Rottweiler guard dog late at night, the trio breaks into the house, unaware that they've just crossed into a reverse "Wait Until Dark" on steroids.

Stephen Lang has played major bad-butts before (for one, Colonel Miles Quaritch in "Avatar"). Here, he transforms his "Blind Man" (the character's credited name) into a human hand grenade with the pin pulled.

Working from a concise screenplay by fellow Uruguayan Rodo Sayagues, Alvarez - making his second movie on the heels of his disappointing "Evil Dead" remake - cannily treats the vet as a puppy dog gone rabid.

At first, we totally sympathize with the vet when Alex enters his bedroom. The man suddenly bolts up in bed, looking confused and frightened, sensing someone might be in his house.

"Leave this guy alone!" we think. But not for long.

As the Blind Man unleashes his inner Hannibal Lecter, our sympathies shift to the poor home invaders, long before we discover more perverse reasons to fear this guy.

Lang's muscular, full-throttle performance drives the action, precision-cut by three editors, and accompanied by Roque Banos' primal, percussive score crammed with mangled musical notes designed to pluck our nerves like steel guitar strings.

These elements nicely compensate for convenient coincidences and lucky breaks (good thing the Blind Man uses the same security code for every lock!), plus an awkwardly contrived simulation in which the lights get shut off and we, the audience, possess the magical ability to discern images of people stumbling around in "total darkness."

It's just the vet's way of gaining blind justice.

“Don't Breathe”

★ ★ ★

Starring: Jane Levy, Stephen Lang, Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto

Directed by: Fede Alvarez

Other: A Screen Gems release. Rated R for language, sexual references, violence. 88 minutes