Hold Your Breath
Hold Your Breath
On a personal prespective, the horror genre in 2024 is filled with COVID somehow. It includes isolation more than before than the stories one could find in any given genre. It is a well-known fact that since 2020 everyone was mostly confined to their homes so the cinema where parent’s anxiety is about the unknown evil hiding outside has become even more accurate. Very soon after the overly familiar story of Judith who might be showing signs of inheritance-centric madness as sufferer turned hero in “Never Let Go,” Hulu released another story of a mommy who might be going mad Karrie Crouse and Will Joines’ “Hold Your Breath” which debuted at TIFF last month. It’s supported by as ever standard Sarah Paulson performance. Nevertheless, “Hold Your Breath” which is one of the bricks of brilliant works is one more instance of disappointing development. This is a puzzle that contains so many pieces, but in the end, fits with the rest of the structure.
In 1933 during the dust bowl days and in the state of Oklahoma where everything is dry and dusty, “Hold Your Breath” revamps a great tale. Dust storms can occur at anytime and wipe out all that lies in their paths or even take lives away. Margaret Bellum (Paulson) is a mother left all alone in such an environment as her husband is away looking after their two children that survived, Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins). It tells the story of one such dusty being from another tale, where one little girl reads such a tale to another—about a hideous figure that some call the Gray Man, who lurks in dust and darkness and invades your soul to make you do the “evil”. Does the dust storms carry anything—anything at all that normal human beings can switch so dramatically that they become such barbaric monsters and kill without care?
Once the Bellums are exposed to the story of a man who killed an entire family nearby, paranoia levels escalate forcing them to wear masks all the time. Include the dusty winds, the Gray Man, and this wandering man who appears to be lost. Still, the worst fears of the family probably lies in Margaret’s gradual insanity. For instance, she has been sleep-walking at nights and is constantly battling intrusive flashbacks of dreadful dust clouds. Another mother living in the same locality who feels much more similar to Margaret has also been introduced, Esther (Annaleigh Ashford).
During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, it may be difficult to picture the burden that parenthood incurred, and yet there is actually an interesting dramatic here more interesting than the former about how maternal guilt can coalesce into a form of insanity if the circumstances deems it necessary. There’s no arguing that Paulson is at her best on this side when it comes to depiction of that kind of mental conflict, doubt whether there’s a danger to her daughters outside or hanging within.
In keeping with the rest of the film, there are also some effective sequences in “Hold Your Breath” two of which feature a preacher played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach of “The Bear.” The first of them is striking—one that rises from a barn like Nosferatu emerging from a coffin; a gory snapshot in a film that has so many of them. In a later part of the picture is a very tense scene around a dinner table that Paulson and Moss-Bachrach with their delivery of captions totally approaches outdo every other source of criticism of their work. At last, there is a precise episode when Margaret for instance has to act in front of the people who call themselves her neighbours reasonably sane or else have her children taken from her, although this event somehow feels like it was cut in the editing room.
There are better sections in ‘Hold Your Breath’ which are not recommended because of the aforementioned reservation. What’s so funny about the Gray Man and its reliance on CGI dust clouds? They know that the most terrifying monster is the mother who is about to lose her mind and they all focus on their actors rather than some high concept. A great actress brings breathlessness that no other medium can do and for that matter, very few in the performances.
Watch free movies on Fmovies
- Genre: Drama, horror
- Country: united states
- Director: Karrie Crouse
- Cast: Sarah Paulson · Margaret Bellum , Amiah Miller · Rose Bellum , Alona Jane Robbins · Ollie Bellum , Annaleigh Ashford · Esther Smith , Ebon Moss-Bachrach.