Hold Your Breath review
Sarah Paulson shines through a too slow moving storm.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Hold Your Breath
Directed by Karrie Crouse and William Jones
Written by Karrie Crouse
Starring Sarah Paulson, Amiah Miller, Alona James Robbins, Annaleigh Ashford, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Frances Lee McCain
Hold Your Breath Review
Ahh…Hulu. Aside from dedicated horror channels…no streamer gets into the Spooky Season spirit quite like Hulu. Their annual Huluween event is upon us once again. With Mr. Crocket, Carved and various other specials sitting on deck…the seasonal happening begins in earnest with Hold Your Breath. The Sarah Paulson (off to a good start) led period piece (uh-oh) is the first taste of new horror from the streaming giant this season. Unfortunately, the first house we hit this Halloween was giving out baggies of pretzels instead of the good stuff. Pretzels are fine. But we can have those any day. They’re boring and unworthy of the holiday. And so it goes with Hold Your Breath.
That’s probably too harsh of a tone to begin this review with. Hold Your Breath is a decent little movie. Paulson is great in it (of course). You’d just like to have something a little more…empty calorie when you ring the Huluween bell. Mr. Crocket and Carved look to fill that quotient just fine…but we aren’t to those houses yet. Instead, we get a slow-moving character drama about a mother’s slow descent into madness. If we had a nickel for every modern horror movie about a slow descent into madness, we’d be able to buy the good stuff for ourselves.
Margaret (Paulson) wrestles with a relentless dust storm as her husband is away for work. She tries to keep her two daughters safe from the storm…and deal with their fears of “the Grey Man”. When she finds a preacher hiding in their barn wearing her husband’s jacket…the family’s luck begins to change for the better. At least…briefly.
I wrote the word “slow” four times in my notes while watching Hold Your Breath. For the record, I don’t take that many notes. “Slow burn”, “Slow descent into madness”, “Slow moving storm”, “Slow”. Sometimes a word cloud really does paint a clear picture. Hold Your Breath is a slow-moving picture. If you’ve ever wondered why this is a common occurrence in stories set in the past…there is a reason for it. The easiest way for writers and directors to differentiate time periods from our fast-moving modern world is to slow things to a crawl.
Hold Your Breath takes place in 1933. It’s set somewhere in the Oklahoma panhandle. How would we ever believe this 1930s setting unless everything was dragged out as long as possible? I’ll be honest…I tired of this trick years ago. Slow burn movies are perfectly fine if they are part of the story unfolding. On paper, Hold Your Breath’s pacing should match with its lead character’s slow descent. It doesn’t feel that way, however. It’s slow because life in the 30s was, comparatively, slower. Margaret’s descent doesn’t match up with the timing. It doesn’t build tension or purposely drag out intentional suspense. It’s just…slow.
The word “slow” is a near death knell for films. It’s like starting an at-bat with an 0-2 count. If you’re going to present a slow movie…you have to really connect with your next swing. Hold Your Breath, thankfully, manages to make contact. Thanks to Paulson, a gorgeously shot setting, and a few genuinely strong scenes involving Brother Wallace (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), the movie manages to land a ground rule double. The follow up can’t bring the runner home…but it makes for a watchable inning. I’m using an uncomfortable number of metaphors in this review.
Let’s speak more directly. Sarah Paulson is a great actor. Hold Your Breath gives her enough to work with to deliver another fine performance. Wallace’s entrance into the story gives it a bit of momentum that it lacked beforehand. Ebon Moss-Bachrach gives the role a quiet menace that is genuinely unnerving. You aren’t sure if you should even be intimidated by Wallace until the movie wants you to know. These mid-film sequences are the highlight of the movie. These scenes are examples of “slow” done right. The reveal of Wallace’s true nature is presented slowly. Right in line with the quietly unnerving performance Moss-Bachrach is delivering.
Hold Your Breath soon sets that story in the background and concentrates its attention on Margaret’s emotional state. Despite Paulson’s best efforts…the movie never matches her changes in demeanor. One of the ways films can use the medium to convey emotional change is to, literally, change its style. Become an active piece of storytelling. The mystery of Wallace is kept at arm’s length. Pacing isn’t an issue when it matches the point. Maragret is our main character. We see the world through her eyes. And that world doesn’t change what it’s presenting even though she is changing inside of it. It forces space between viewers and the character we’re meant to pair with. It makes the pacing stand out. That’s when you feel the slowness.
There are a lot worse movies than Hold Your Breath that will pop up this Spooky Season. Hulu may release one or two themselves before all is said and done. If you want a strong lead performance…Sarah Paulson has you covered. If you want much more than that…try knocking on another door.
Scare Value
Despite Sarah Paulson’s usual excellence…Hold Your Breath can’t quite find a way out of its dust storm. It can be a bit of a slog to watch. There are some fine moments in here…but you have to make your way through a lot of slow-moving drama to get to them. The cast makes things as interesting as they can. When the dust settles…you’re left to realize how little the movie was working with them.
2/5
Hold Your Breath Link
Streaming on Hulu
