A review by Brooks Rich
I probably should have covered this film back in October, but went with the film Oculus instead, when I covered this director. But it works now because Doctor Sleep, directed by Mike Flanagan, is released this week. Hush is a great fit for the months we cover Hitchcock because it uses suspense brilliantly. It builds dread and tension, and the few small jump scares it has, it earns. It also most effectively plays on a common fear.... that we feel like someone is watching us when we're alone. Hush captures that feeling you get when you're home alone at two in the morning and think you see something out of the corner of your eye.
A young deaf author named Maddie is living at a remote cabin in the woods, trying to finish the ending of her second novel. She is also a year past a pretty ugly break up. Her only neighbors are the kind hearted Sarah and her boyfriend, John. In the middle of the night Sarah is brutally murdered by a man with a crossbow. This man is wearing a creepy ass mask, see the poster below, and soon realizes that Maddie can't hear him. What follows is one of the best cat and mouse thrillers in a long time.
Flanagan brilliantly uses sound to his advantage, choosing strategic times to let us hear the world around Maddie and also taking the sound away so we can experience the world like Maddie does. The scene where Sarah is killed and the killer stalks Maddie without her knowledge is so tense and well done.
Actress Kate Siegel, who also co-wrote the film with Flanagan and is married to him, a fun fact for you all, does a great job as Maddie here. She's the perfect girl in peril who slowly turns the tables on her attacker. Maddie is resourceful and we root for her the whole time. She's one of the most likable characters in recent horror cinema and we hate to even imagine something bad happening to her. Props also to John Gallagher Jr. as the killer. He is a menacing boogeyman and Flanagan and Siegel make him even more sinister by giving him a sense of ambiguity. There's nothing scarier then a killer with no clear motive, no clear rhyme or reason. (see also the film The Strangers)
This film is on Netflix. See it as soon as you can. This gets my highest recommendation. An underrated gem that I hope gets more love as Flanagan gets more well known.
I probably should have covered this film back in October, but went with the film Oculus instead, when I covered this director. But it works now because Doctor Sleep, directed by Mike Flanagan, is released this week. Hush is a great fit for the months we cover Hitchcock because it uses suspense brilliantly. It builds dread and tension, and the few small jump scares it has, it earns. It also most effectively plays on a common fear.... that we feel like someone is watching us when we're alone. Hush captures that feeling you get when you're home alone at two in the morning and think you see something out of the corner of your eye.
A young deaf author named Maddie is living at a remote cabin in the woods, trying to finish the ending of her second novel. She is also a year past a pretty ugly break up. Her only neighbors are the kind hearted Sarah and her boyfriend, John. In the middle of the night Sarah is brutally murdered by a man with a crossbow. This man is wearing a creepy ass mask, see the poster below, and soon realizes that Maddie can't hear him. What follows is one of the best cat and mouse thrillers in a long time.
Flanagan brilliantly uses sound to his advantage, choosing strategic times to let us hear the world around Maddie and also taking the sound away so we can experience the world like Maddie does. The scene where Sarah is killed and the killer stalks Maddie without her knowledge is so tense and well done.
Actress Kate Siegel, who also co-wrote the film with Flanagan and is married to him, a fun fact for you all, does a great job as Maddie here. She's the perfect girl in peril who slowly turns the tables on her attacker. Maddie is resourceful and we root for her the whole time. She's one of the most likable characters in recent horror cinema and we hate to even imagine something bad happening to her. Props also to John Gallagher Jr. as the killer. He is a menacing boogeyman and Flanagan and Siegel make him even more sinister by giving him a sense of ambiguity. There's nothing scarier then a killer with no clear motive, no clear rhyme or reason. (see also the film The Strangers)
This film is on Netflix. See it as soon as you can. This gets my highest recommendation. An underrated gem that I hope gets more love as Flanagan gets more well known.
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