Hush

'Hush' is a fast-paced modern slasher flick with a twisted take on the genre. Well, the twist here is that the lead protagonist is deaf and mute from her teens and the director-writer combo of Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel (who also happen to be husband-wife in real life), places this character in a stuck-up situation where a killer is on the prowl and all odds are stacked against her. Questions start piling up but a good thirty minutes into the film, the viewer is given enough leads to estimate where the film is headed.

A film such as this, where the entire scenario revolves around a minimalist location, one feels inclined to applaud director Flanagan's knack for not making the film look like yet another typical home-invasion flick. The protagonist Maddie's inability to speak or hear is put to good effect in the screenplay. I won't spoil those brilliantly written and choreographed scenes in this review, because that is exactly what puts this flick a few notches above the rest in the genre. Equally inventive and enthralling are those scenes where Maddie's imaginative capability is put to test.

The cast (that comprises of just four characters, out of which the film revolves majorly around two!) is adequate as well, and lends ample support to the overall mainstay of the flick. Flanagan's directorial skills, which looked rather unimpressive in Absentia (2011), after which he made a notable Oculus (2013), has considerably improved over the years, all the while sticking to modest production expenditure. Aided in writing by his wife Kate Siegel, the couple seem poised to astonish us yet again this year in the sequel to the strictly sub- par Ouija (2014).

Hush is a pleasant surprise amongst the shitload of low-budget slasher garbage that is handed out to us every now and then. It is by all means worth a watch for thriller buffs.

"Hush" focuses on Maddie, a deaf-mute writer living alone in a remote house, where she is accosted one evening by a psychopath hellbent on terrorizing and murdering her.

Co-written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who many have cited as a contemporary horror maestro, "Hush" is a straightforward thriller that cuts to the chase. There's not a lot of plot; most of the film plays on the gimmick of the protagonist being unable to hear anything around her (including the noise she makes), which is a clever setup for a horror-thriller film (I'm actually surprised it wasn't done earlier).

Comparisons to "The Strangers" are abundant and probably well-deserved, as that film pioneered the post-millennial home invasion film as we know it. "Hush" reduces the equation a bit, stripping it down to a one-on-one cat-and-mouse game, so in some regard it's a much more intense film; on the other hand, it's also remarkably less scary—but that's not really what Flanagan seems to be going for here anyway. It's not a film that intends to scare or get under the skin so much as it is a sparring match between two very different people.

The film is nicely shot and there are some fantastic scenes that play on a collective home invasion paranoia that I think we all have. The gore is kept to a minimum, but what is there is extremely visceral. The performances are solid, which is vital for a film that virtually revolves around two characters; Kate Siegel (who co-wrote the film with Flanagan) stars as the deaf Maddie, and is extremely believable, while John Gallagher Jr. plays the anonymous nutjob who is more despicable than he is scary. Where the film does falter a bit is in its last act, where the gimmick begins to wear off a bit as Maddie's situation grows more and more helpless. There is an amicable payoff in the end, albeit a drawn-out one.

Overall, I found "Hush" to be a relatively well-made film, and an enjoyable riff on the home invasion setup. That said, the film does grow dull in areas, and it also offers little in the way of new ideas, but what it does do, it does with class. All in all an entertaining and fairly intense thriller for what it's worth. 7/10.

Real-life deaf people (without mental disorder) are not so clumsy. The script forced a "deaf helpless" but ended up leaving the protagonist without the other senses of the body. Any deaf person would pick up the vibrations of doors rattling, or reflections/shadows from someone nearby, smelling sweat. I almost liked it but I thought it was a bit of "pushed" agony.

Mike Flanagan is one for two in my books. His first big film was Absentia, which was a slow boring mess of a film. Interesting ideas, but nothing much else was going on in the film. His second output was a vast improvement, Oculus. Flanagan showed promise and improvement, which made me interested in seeing what else he had for future projects. Well, he has two films coming out in 2016 and I want to talk about Hush, his take on the home invasion sub-genre.

Home invasion films have been done to death. Some are great (You're Next), some are tolerable (The Strangers) and some are downright terrible (When A Stranger Calls, 2006). So how does one make their home invasion film stand out from the rest? There has to be some twist on the story to make it memorable. You're Next was a great deconstruction of the genre itself and had the heroine be a survival specialist. The twist Hush brings us lies in the fact that our protagonist if completely deaf.

The key element that makes or breaks this film is the sound design. I felt like the crew pulled it off and we have a solid thriller on our hands here. Maddie is a deaf author and she has secluded herself in a house in the woods to write her next book. Problems arise when someone outside her house decides to play a deadly game with Maddie and know she has to keep him out and escape alive. Again, this is a simple premise that is only made interesting by the fact that she is deaf and how the filmmakers decide to handle that aspect of the story.

While the film does inevitably go down routine routes with the story, Flanagan does so with skill and finesse. Multiple times throughout the film we are in Maddie's shoes as Flanagan completely mutes the audio. We see the terror happening behind her, but we cannot hear it. He can be entering the house at any point and we will not know. Flanagan manages to seep the viewer in suspense throughout the whole film and while there are some gory and squeamish scenes, he doesn't rely on them. They feel real and earned. Looking back at the film there are multiple sequences where I was taken back or had a huge grin on my face with the ingenuity of it all.

People will ultimately try to find inconsistencies with how the film handles the deaf aspect. I had maybe one issue myself, but can look past it for the benefit of the enjoyment I ultimately had because of the film. With a small cast of only four people and hardly any dialogue (maybe 15 minutes total?) Hush is a well crafted film that earns a viewing from anyone who likes this genre.

Let us start with the fact that this is not a horror movie. It's a thriller, with some interesting unusual aspects, as well as a few cringe-worthy flaws (in character logic, as the case always seems to be).

So what makes this movie stand out and feel almost fresh? The obvious first is that our protagonist is deaf-mute. Not being an expert on deaf people, I still believe this was played quite consistently to the movie's credit. It is interesting to occupy the head space of someone missing such an important sense in a frightful situation.

Another thing I noticed is the total lack of jump scares. There isn't a single jump-scare in the movie, which only further distances Hush from being a horror movie. In fact the usual creep factor as a whole is kept to a minimum. It quickly becomes a cat-and-mouse kind of battle of wits more than anything else, which I found a pleasant surprise, despite being more of a horror fanatic.

The third curious thing is that from the get go it's made clear that the killer is very much human. We don't know what his motivations are, he's just out to kill and doesn't give much of a s*** about anything else but his upper hand. He doesn't have much of a plan and has to improvise, as does our protagonist to survive.

I found the thrill in this movie to be more intellectual than primal. The gore is neither profuse nor lacking, it's there when it's needed. It's well shot, acted, directed and edited, considering the modest budget, and doesn't overstay its welcome. I'd recommend it for a rainy evening if you want to see the thriller genre try something new.