Hold your breath— my take on the movie with spoilers!


PLOT SUMMARY: When a group of friends drive past a cemetery, one of them doesn't hold their breath as per a superstition and accidentally breathes in a demon. 

Years ago, I read in a young adult fiction how a character would always hold her breath when she passed graveyards.
I was so influenced by books then that I did exactly that whenever I passed by a cemetery.
That's the thing about superstitions. You end up believing in them without trying to understand them or asking why.

Hold your breath explains why you should take some superstitions seriously. Or not.

HOLD YOUR BREATH Movie Plot 

The movie begins with a group of friends off on a camping trip.
None of their backstories matter. You know what kind of movie this is after they show a criminal being electrocuted years before. You know he's coming back to kill again.

None of the friends is likeable so you end up wondering who will survive and who will be the first victim.

They come across a gravesite and one of them screams at everyone to hold their breath. Why? Because some souls are so evil, not even hell takes them and they are cursed to roam around their graves.
The friends blow up their cheeks. They could cover their noses or just stop inhaling for a few seconds, but they need to emphasize how to hold a breath.

One of them is smoking and of course, sucks in an evil soul. Yes, the very soul of the criminal.
He sees a flash of images and then, boom, he's possessed.
His freak out while having his soul be replaced almost causes an accident. The driver's reflexes need to be put through careful examination.

They recover, find themselves near an abandoned prison and decide to go in. While a couple goes in to have a private moment, the other three decide to strap a friend onto the electric chair. While the possessed one is out killing a cop.

Once strapped in, an unexpected storm hits and the roof begins to fall in. For some reason, the two girls know how to strap him to the chair but not unbuckle. It takes all their friends to help him out.
Outside, the possessed friend is busy smoking after a kill. He tosses off the mobile phones which the friends stupidly agree to give up.

At the campsite, one of the friends punches the possessed one in the stomach and whoosh, the soul leaves him and enters another body.
He, along with another friend, go back to retrieve a bag, pass by the graves again and this time he doesn't hold his breath even as the girl does.

He gives an eerie smile and immediately knocks her out.
Meanwhile, the others realize their friends haven't come back and follow the trail back. It's night when they arrive at the graveyard and find tracks and blood.

This leads them to the mutilated body of the girl. The possessed friend attacks with a pitchfork but the friends are saved by an old man with a shotgun.
He takes them to his house and narrates the past events and states he was one of the policemen that were around the criminal in 1956.

He tells them the only way to defeat the criminal is to find the soul of the warden.
This time, don't hold your breath.

HOLD YOUR BREATH Ending Explained with Spoilers!

The criminal jumps from one body to another while the warden possesses one of the friends who soon has to punch his girlfriend in the face when she's possessed by evil.

After a weird fight, the souls escape the bodies and have an aerial fight. Some awkward lights and effects are shown after which one of them falls, gets sucked into the old man's nose who then explodes.
The next day, the remaining friends drive away and arrive at a campsite. The girls ask the guy to stop and call for help. They themselves don't get off the car.

No surprises here, the guy is possessed by the criminal and stabs his girlfriend while the other screams.

Why did the guy wait until daytime to do that if he was already possessed? Probably to give the girls a surprise.
All in all, it is a decent movie despite the effects and the forced intimate scenes.

Scare scale: 2.5/5



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