Hush

This is a fucking sick film!


Director: Mike Flanagan

Writers: Mike Flanagan

               Kate Siegal

Run time: 1hr 12minutes

Plot: A deaf woman finds herself trapped in her secluded home, fighting for her life with a manic trying to kill her.

Important issues first, there is a cute little cat in this film but don’t you worry, it’s ok, it survives to the end so if you watch this film after you’ve read this review then you won’t have a mini heart attack. With that out of the way, let’s get to the other important thing here, the film. Hush is in the critically acclaimed section of Netflix, and rightfully so, it’s pretty damn good and is the film that spawned my love for John Gallagher Jr. I may have mentioned before that I love this guy but I’m not sure, either way I love this guy. He’s a good actor and it sucks that he’s not in the mainstream eye all that much. Then again if he’s doing smaller films like this maybe it’s best he stays out of the big ol’ spotlight. Besides the point. The point is, this is a great film and I’m gonna tell you why.

It’s an almost silent film. How can nobody appreciate that? It’s rare as hell, in fact the only thing I’ve seen lately that’s a quiet / silent film and that’s the upcoming Emily Blunt and John Kraninski film (name of movie here). The only thing you can hear in this is Maddie’s (Kate Siegel) breath, the sounds being made around the house and John Gallagher Jr talking every now and then. The almost absence of sound absolutely draws you in. You’re listening out for Maddie as if you could help her and tell her where this psycho is. You’re listening out for everything for her because...honestly there’s no boring dialogue to sit through, no overly talked out exposition giving us the characters backstory, their grandmothers backstory and a random rocks ancestry. It’s a nice break. Genuinely.

Another pretty cool thing to do with this film was to make the main character deaf. Everybody’s always talking about representation for everybody and this is a damn good representation of a woman who will not be held back by her inability to speak or hear. There are some crazy things this girl does which is dumb but I won’t hold it against her because she’s a fucking badass. At one point guys, she’s been shot in the leg with an arrow and she carries the fuck on. Later on in the film she dips into her hole in her leg, gathers some blood on her finger and writes on the window, daring her tormentor to kill her, calling him a coward. If she’s not a character to look up to then I got no idea who is.

"The Man" is also the smartest killer I've seen in a long time in film. At one point, Maddie writes on her window that she won't tell the police because she didn't see his face. So what does he do? He takes his mask off and tells her that he's going to mentally torture her until he can be bothered killing her. I love it. And his motives are never explained which is the best thing about the character. It's scarier to leave things to the imagination. It's scarier to believe that he's just doing it because he can, not because he had a messed up childhood or whatever it is that films blame the development of murderers on.

Finally, and this is my absolute favourite thing about the film is that it's so realistic. You know how in horror films, if you've seen enough of them, you're complaining that the characters are always doing the exact wrong thing so that they don't get caught? Well in this, Maddie thinks through her options, she tries her best to work out the best way to get herself out of the situation. There are a few things that do mean she's following the ways of the normal horror films, however, she still manages to come out the better horror heroine.

As much as I've had to say praising this film, it does have its drawbacks which, thankfully, there aren't many of.

First of all, the acting in this film is fantastic, I love it...from almost everybody. Emma Graves who plays Maddie's sister, Max is terrible. She's just so wooden in this and it's almost like she just doesn't care because her role is filmed over a webcam rather than right in front of the cameras. I don't know if this was her first film or not but hopefully, if she's been in anything else she's gotten better.

Another thing that goes against the film is just general things such as getting shot in the leg with an arrow and bending your legs back to lie down. Then taking the arrow out of your leg while it's bent. Problem 1 with this, you probably wouldn't bend like that if you had just been cross-bowed in the thigh. Problem 2, common sense dictates there is more risk pulling out the arrow than keeping it in your leg, you could rip an artery leading to a faster death, you could make the injury worse, if there was poison on the tip you could risk moving it around your system faster than you would just keeping the damned thing in your leg. Problem 3, if you do decide to take out the arrow, don't take it out while your leg is bent in a way that would push all your blood out.

Finally, there's a moment where Maddie tries to get the cat to come to her by rattling the cats food. Fair enough right? My cat comes bounding out of nowhere if he even hears me go to the kitchen. Problem being she continually moves away from the cats eating place and from what I've seen in cats, they hear their food they go to where their food usually is. They won't play "find the dish" they'll sit there yelling at you like a petulant toddler until they get their food. So in Maddie wandering about, she could be losing the cat easily.

The absolute worst thing about the film, however, is that Maddie names her cat Bitch. Poor baby, although I suppose it's a better name than Shits (The real name of the cat my friend used to have until she recently passed away. The cat not the friend.)

Anyway, that's it for today. This film is pretty fucking cool and I love it and you should watch it and love it too. Pretty much everything works in the films advantage and it's just so tense to watch this deaf woman with basically no sensory or physical advantage take on a maniac who is just determined to kill her. It's a great watch and it's back up on Netflix in the Critically Acclaimed section so you go ahead and watch it. Stay hydrated and have a lovely day. Peace out.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.