Hush (2016)

"I can come in anytime I want. 

And I can get you, anytime I want."

Note to self, if you’re deaf and living in the woods on your own, maybe don’t leave all your doors and windows unlocked and your phone in another room...

A deaf writer isolates herself in the woods to finish her book when a masked killer appears at her window. 

I’ve been known to enjoy a horror film or two and, after being given ‘Hush' as a recommendation, I was in the mood for some good old slasher fun. 

If you’re up for a horror flick that’ll keep you entertained without having to think too much then ‘Hush' might just be the movie for you.

For a lot of reasons, I both loved and hated this film. It's a constant back and forth between horror film cliché and horror film innovation.

'Hush' starts off with a dated premise but with a fresh take on it. Maddie, a writer, has moved herself to a house in the middle of nowhere so she can finish her new book. At a young age, a disease left her deaf and unable to speak so she has had to learn to cope in isolation. A masked killer shows up at her remote house in the woods and we have our movie.

Kate Siegel plays Maddie in the film and she delivers a competent and engaging performance. Her character is deaf and mute so trying to portray those aspects realistically while still conveying emotion and drama is quite a task for any actor. Good acting in any horror film is a bonus so it's nice to see Siegel bring some credibility to the character. I've not seen her in much else other than 'Oculus', by the same director, which I didn't love but I'd be curious to see some more of her work.

What I found really intriguing was the new dimension that was brought to the horror genre with Kate Siegel's character being deaf and mute. It isolates her even more and makes things even more challenging when the masked killer shows up wanting to kill her. They play on the idea a lot and make good use of it for the tension and atmosphere. She can't hear the killer so everything becomes visual and makes for some relatively tense viewing when she doesn't know where the killer is coming from.

It's a pretty straight forward slasher film. A masked killer wants to kill isolated woman in the woods. Not exactly ground breaking storytelling and, as much as I'd like to say that it does, it doesn't elevate itself much above that simple premise despite the added element of the deaf protagonist. It's pretty much just plain old vanilla. 

With any slasher flick you have to watch the line between cheesy fun and serious horror. You have to really know which side of the line you land on because, when the line starts to blur, the problems start appearing. 'Hush', for me, felt like it was trying to be a serious horror film so when the clichés and flawed logic started cropping up, I knew that it wasn't deliberate. 

There are a lot of convenient plot points that allow the story to progress that don't make a whole lot of sense and we end up screaming at the screen because of the lack of common sense that Kate Siegel's character Maddie shows. Bad decisions and wasted opportunities just take you right out the film and make you question everything Maddie is doing.

The tension is pretty decent but not nearly as tense as it could have and should have been. It's a little scary but not as scary as it could have and should have been. It's has some gore but it's not as gory as it could have and should have been... You get where I'm going with this?

It lacks impact and packs only a gentle punch that seems to simply graze your cheek rather than knock you flat out. With a set up as isolated and as claustrophobic as 'Hush' is, it should be a white knuckle ride that keeps you breathless and dreading the next appearance of the killer. Foreign horror films with similar premises like 'Switchblade Romance' and 'Inside' have got this tension and execution nailed but Hollywood doesn't seem to have the balls to go all out and grab us by the throat. We want to be pushed with horror and the genre should have the ability and freedom to do that.

Overall, 'Hush' is a flawed film but it does make some new choices behind the safety veil of clichés and genre conformity. It does try something different, which is to be commended, but the film lacks impact.

A better version of this film would probably be 'The Strangers' from back in 2008. 

Plus it has Liv Tyler in it so you can't really go wrong there.