PLOT SUMMARY: When Norman takes in a girl called Phoenix and she gets kidnapped, he realizes that his past has finally caught up to him.
For a movie that warns you not to breathe, there sure is a lot of encouragement given to breathing.
Take for instance the scene where a man's nose and mouth is glued shut. His friend uses a tool to create a hole in his face to make his breathing easier. Later, the man slices his mouth to make breathing easier.
Then there's a scene where a girl is trapped in a bunker full of water and almost drowns. Her saviour performs CPR on her, saving her. And what does he say while doing it? "Breathe. Breathe."
So yes, there is a lot of breathing, walking around noisily, and breaking into homes of blind people.
While the first movie dealt with a group of robbers breaking into a blind man's house and then having the tables turned around, this movie is about a group of thugs who are after the Blind Man for what he did eight years ago.
But before we get into the details and spoilers for the movie, here's an interesting thing about Don't Breathe. In the first movie, when we learn what the robbers are up to, we immediately sympathize with the Blind Man. He was a veteran and now just living his life with his dog. On top of it, the robbers are stealing the money he got as compensation from a woman who killed his daughter in a car accident. Can the blind man, Norman, catch a break?
As the movie progresses and we find ourselves rooting for Norman, we are hit with a plot twist no one saw coming. Turns out Norman isn't just a fragile, helpless old man. He's a devious man who has depraved methods to exact revenge. He has not only kidnapped the woman responsible for his daughter's death but also impregnated her so that he can have a descendant. It is when he captures the woman, Rocky, who was part of the gang that was going to rob him, that our sympathies shift to the other side.
Rocky is restrained and is about to be impregnated artificially when her friend manages to save her. Rocky escapes, thinking she's defeated Norman, but there's now a sequel with him on the poster, so clearly she was unsuccessful at that.
This is what made Don't Breathe interesting: the fact that we are shown only antagonists and must try to side with them because, at the end of the day, we want to see someone win.
Don't Breathe 2, doesn't very successfully leave us conflicted as to whom we should side with. The elements are all there, but somehow, it just doesn't work.
DON'T BREATHE Movie Plot
In the first scene, we see a girl on the ground. Eight years later, she's a bit grown-up, called Phoenix, and is living with Norman. She helps him with his haircuts, musing whether she got the white streak in her hair from him or her mother. Norman has apparently told her that her mother and some things were lost in the fire. Now, of course, we know nothing like that happened and there is no way that Phoenix is his real daughter.
Phoenix isn't allowed to go out much and is in her rebellious stage where she wants to break free. Norman relents only once, and that too after his friend, and grocery supplier, Hernandez, promises to take care of Phoenix.
But the minute she is in the van, Hernandez offers to take her to the burned-down house that was once Phoenix's home. They go there and Phoenix lays some flowers on the floor and thinks someone else is in the house.
She is then taken around town and she is just happy to be out and sing a song that she thinks her mother used to sing for her. At the playground, she notices a shelter and dreams about living there, free from restrictions.
When later she uses the bathroom at the gas station, she finds a man watching her and calling her pretty. She gets nervous and leaves but it is clear that the man wants to follow her.
Hernandez returns Phoenix safe and sound to Norman who has just finished stacking his sweet peas and olives in his basement which also has a red bunker.
The camera stays on the can of sweet peas a little longer than it should be so it is obvious the canned food has an important role to play later on.
Hernandez is heading home when she finds a truck on the road, blocking her path. She goes to check them out and is cautious. Suspecting them to be criminals, she returns to her car to call the police, when a man hiding in the backseat, stabs her.
Later, Phoenix moans about wanting to go to a real school but Norman thinks it is a bad idea and just hands her some books she is expected to gain knowledge from. Then he goes to feed his dog and is stumped when his dog doesn't come to him for his feeding. As Norman heads to the woods to search for his dog, a couple of intruders break into the house and Phoenix, who has learned some survival skills from Norman, uses them to hide under beds and wardrobes, and then hang from staircases.
Norman eventually finds his dog but is heartbroken to find him dead. He feels the dog and is astonished to find a bullet. He understands some criminals are nearby and have targeted him.
Phoenix has now taken refuge in the red bunker but the intruders quickly throw a hose in to fill it up with water.
Norman manages to successfully tackle some of the intruders, even willingly burning down his basement, but more people are called in. Norman glues an intruder's mouth shut and his friend helps him out. Another intruder is still standing by the bunker and filling it with water as Phoenix starts to lose consciousness. After a struggle, Norman gets to the bunker and tips it over to open the door. Phoenix is saved after CPR.
But here comes the twist. The leader of the gang, Raylan assures Phoenix he doesn't want to hurt her and that Norman isn't her father. While Phoneix's jaw is dropping, Raylan removes his cap to show a streak of white hair. Phoenix gets convinced Raylan is her father. He also tells her that her real name is Tara. Norman is taken away to be killed away from Phoenix/Tara even though Raylan could have let them finish a job then and there and taken Tara elsewhere. But nope.
Norman is taken inside the house, fire is set to it, and the gang who has a dog leaves the animal to die too.
Norman manages to escape and save the dog because no matter how terrible he is to humans, he's great to dogs. Besides, he's in the market for another pet. But the dog runs away after Norman sets it free, and of course, Norman follows it.
Tara is initially hesitant after waking up in a different environment and even though had learned that Norman isn't her father, still considers returning to him.
Raylan assures her she's not a prisoner and can leave whenever she wants. She's about to do just that when a woman in a wheelchair comes over and begins singing the very sing Tara always has. She realizes she's meeting her mother.
The family reunion is cut short immediately when the mother reveals her heart was damaged in the fire because she was "cooking" something in the basement.
And of course, not any heart would do; only a blood relative. Too late, Tara realises she has been drugged. She awakens to find herself strapped on a bed next to her mother who thanks her for her sacrifice.
But Tara doesn't need to fear because Norman is here. He takes on the thugs one by one after cutting off the power just before Tara was going to go under the knife.
DON'T BREATHE 2 Ending Explained
Raylan wonders how Norman found him and sees the dog running inside. Raylan curses the loyal dog not realising the dog is not loyal to him anymore but has changed teams.
After everyone is picked off one by one, even the mother who is fatally shot, it is Raylan's turn to be welcomed into the world of darkness. Norman pokes Raylan's eyes in and thinks he's dead.
But of course, Raylan isn't and he comes up behind him just as Norman helps Tara, and stabs him. Tara stabs Raylan in turn. She then tries to help Norman but he explains he's a terrible man who has committed many crimes and thought raising her would absolve him from all that.
Tara cries as Norman breathes his last
She walks out, free at last to go to the shelter where she meets with the other kids. When they ask her name, she decides the name Tara wasn't too lucky for her and made her lose a lot of people. She introduces herself as Phoenix because she has risen once again, from the ashes.
Before she was saved from a fire and that's why she was called Phoenix. Now it's a metaphor for her circumstances.
So that's it. No third part? Or is there? A mid-credits scene reveals Norman moving his hand slightly.
The movie didn't exactly have an original theme, unlike the first part. It was engaging and had grilling moments, but took an easy way out where Norman's character was concerned.
His turnabout in the sequel seemed lazy. There should have been more development on how the change came about. Sure, he took in Phoenix only because he wanted a replacement for his daughter, but that should have been explored further perhaps with a few scenes that reminded the audience how much he missed his daughter who was taken away from him.
Scare scale: 3.5/5
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