Hold Your Breath, 2024.
Directed by Karrie Crouse and William Joines.
Starring Sarah Paulson, Amiah Miller, Annaleigh Ashford, Alona Jane Robbins, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
SYNOPSIS:
In 1930s Oklahoma amid the region’s horrific dust storms, a woman (Sarah Paulson) is convinced that a sinister presence is threatening her family.
The Oklahoma Panhandle in the 1930s is a refreshing backdrop for scares, not to mention one that provides an oppressive atmosphere between howling dust storms and clanging sound design. Living in that environment surrounded by all kinds of incurable diseases back then is enough material to craft something distinctly terrifying. Directed by Karrie Crouse and William Joines (the former writing the screenplay), Hold Your Breath goes a step further and, for a while, succeeds at the unnerving dynamic it creates with questions and beliefs central characters must reckon with.
Sarah Paulson’s Margaret Bellum is a mother of two daughters, still grieving the loss of a third to scarlet fever. Within this small community, although children are getting sick (the coughing sounds from pneumonia here are appropriately nasty and will leave one wanting to turn the volume down), most adults seem to believe praying to God will sort everything out. Margaret thinks those prayers are pointless and looks for a more practical way to keep her daughters safe.
The two young daughters, Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins), naturally don’t exactly have much fun to have, but the former does read a spooky book to her younger sibling detailing someone called The Grey Man, who is part of the dust. If he is inhaled, he can possess the body and murderously turn them against their family. Of course, this book becomes integral to the plot.
First, Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Wallace Grady emerges, supposedly a man of the cloth who can be trusted because he has crossed paths with Margaret’s husband out West, working and trying to provide a better life. Margaret’s lack of faith soon becomes something she must question, as Wallace seemingly has a magic touch to stop Rose’s nosebleed and brings forth rain for the crops. Until then, they had barely been able to produce more milk from their lone cow; everyone was starving.
Rather than take that the thread and run with it to craft a compelling horror story about religion and faith (for all we know, everything that has happened with Wallace here is a convenient fluke), Hold Your Breath descends into generic motherly hysteria and psychosis. That is something Sarah Paulson is generally terrific at conveying, but it can’t be understated how uninteresting and formulaic the rest of this film is, reliant on jump scares and just enough confusion among the relatively standard narrative. Instead of playing up the horror from human drama and dilemmas, the filmmakers go all in on this supernatural Grey Man entity, robbing the story and characters of its intrigue and complexity.
It’s a shame since the ensemble is mostly strong (especially the child performances as they have to deal with their mother increasingly going cuckoo), and, as previously mentioned, there is a distinct look and feel here for a horror film due to the time and setting. Hold Your Breath falls off a cliff at a certain point, and you will find breathing easy and maybe even fall asleep.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
