TENSION: Fede Alvarez's DON'T BREATHE (co-wri & dir by Fede Alvarez, Sony, USA, 88mns, 2016)

Fede Alvarez's DON'T BREATHE is a nifty trick of a movie.

Three young thieves-Rocky, a young woman from a dysfunctional family, Alex, the conflicted boy who adores her, and Money, Rocky's careless and callous boyfriend-find themselves trapped in the decaying Detroit home of the Blind War Veteran they're trying to rob.

They've heard he has half a million insurance money from the manslaughter death of his daughter stashed somewhere. Why not rob him and start a new life?

This begs the question-who are we supposed to be rooting for here? 

Before the night is over, there will be some twists and turns that will make that question much more complex than we thought.

DON'T BREATHE is a pretty ingenious variation on the popular 1960's stage play and movie thriller WAIT UNTIL DARK which starred Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman terrorized by con artists in her apartment. 

Watching this movie, you feel someone got hit with the lightning bolt-what if we told the story from the point of view of the thieves and made them our heroes? And dared themselves to figure it out.

Probably not a great call to rob a war vet guys. . .

Alvarez is a master of expression and economy when it comes to terror. You can see why this Uruguayan-born moviemaker is now helming the ALIEN: ROMULUS movies. 

The thieves decide to rob the home at night and of course the home is in one of those completely abandoned parts of Detroit that several other moviemakers have recognized as fertile geography for horror (BARBARIAN, IT FOLLOWS, I'm lookin' at you). 

Alvarez also has the instincts of a Hitchcock and a Spielberg (and much of the talent too) in making sure every element is utilized. . .and nothing superfluous is added.

There are the usual niggling low budget horror head scratchers: why do this at night when you're advantaging the blind man? Why are you turned back from a potential escape because it means punching through wood or throwing yourself through a window? 

Why. . .oh please why. . .do people never knock unconscious and then bind up people who are threats when they have the advantage? Why is that the moment they say. . .we're good. . .let's get out of here?

There may also be a few too many clever "wait they're not dead!" moments. It's hard to get away with that once. But this movie tries to get away with it at least four times.

Wait isn’t this guy in AVATAR. . .

Nevertheless, this movie is a nasty tight blast. And the moviemaking is on point. Alvarez shows why a resourceful moviemaker who gets a concept can make a supreme entertainment out of one house, four characters, and a dog.

DON'T BREATHE also surprises as a shadow moral tale. No one's hands are clean in this movie. And many of the twists and turns are subtle results of characters' flawed prior decisions. As if an ineffable unknowable mysterious force also plays a part.

This surprise thematic strength continues until the very last scene/shot. Our decisions follow us. There is no such thing as escaping them. Because it would mean escaping from ourselves. 

And well. . .that's just not the way the world works.

This is yet another great addition to the constant renaissance of the horror genre which every year or two manages to produce a great work of art under the radar. 

Like rock and roll, punk, ska, hip hop, horror gets slept on year after year even as it is often the one genre still progressing cinema towards new frontiers.

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club