Don't Breathe 2: How One Scene can Ruin a Movie

 

Don't Breathe was a lackluster horror movie released in 2016 about a blind man defending his house from a bunch of criminals trying to rob him.  The blind man, is of course, some kind of ex-army guy and despite his affliction is more the capable of doing some unspeakable things to the assholes invading his home.  The movie climaxed with a really gross twist involving a turkey baster and then ended in a way that my memory didn't retain for the most part but I think there was a jump scare from a dog involved.  The writing was fucking awful but the premise and action was enough to at least carry it into a solid "meh" rating where I came away not loving it but not hating it either.  A middling day at the cinema where I at least got to enjoy some time with a friend.

Well, at time of writing I'm currently suffering from the flu and while laying in bed unable to sleep I decided to start looking through the Netflix listings only to find that Don't Breathe got a sequel released all the way back in 2021.  I had no idea this had even come out and so I immdiately tapped the poster and gave it a watch and while at its core its a sort of average gore-fest action film, there's one scene that happened early on that made me frustrated with the rest of the film

Spoilers from here but do you really give a shit?

The film follows the same blind man from the first film who has now aquired himself a daughter that he is extremely protective of.  Behavior that, if you saw the first film, is at least somewhat understandable.  After some establishing scenes with him and the daughter these 4 guys turn up in an attempt to kidnap her and this is what kicks off the high-action blood and gore.  There's one scene in particular, though, where the entire plot just falls apart and it lodged itself into my brain so hard that it ruined the rest of the movie for me.  The blind man had fashioned a metal container box in his basement for his daughter to use a sort of panic room as he goes around and deals with the bad man.  Early into the fighting he tells her to get in there and she complies.  One of the dudes trying to get her chases her down into the basement and when he realises he can't get her out, he grabs a nearby hose and starts flooding the box through an air-hole at the top, I suppose in an attempt to make her panic and leave.  She doesn't leave and eventually the blind man fights his way down into the basement to take on this dude who then proceeds to pull a bit of electrical wire off the wall and hang into into the box to electrocute the girl inside.  They fight, blind man wins, girl doesn't get electrocuted because the wire is pulled away but nearly drowns and she is let free and the movie continues.

Later you find out that the girl is actually the bioloigical daughter of the guy invading the house, a meth cook who's been in prison for a long stint after his lab blew up and he wants her back.  This twist immediately sent my flu-medicine addled brain into storm of confusion.  Why the fuck would that guy attempt to kill the girl if its the boss of his daughter?!  They all seemed to be in on it, surely it's a fucking awful idea to kill your bosses only child just so you can win a fist fight with a blind man.  It may not seem like a big deal but then the twistier twist is that he doesn't want his daughter back because he's a good father, he wants her back so he can harvest her heart and give it to his dying wife!!!  The previous scene of the girl drowning in a metal box came flooding back into my mind like "wow, you're goon nearly completely fucked you at the 30 minute mark" and I'm baffled as to how no one read that in the script or pre-production and didn't bring up this giant gaping problem with the plot.

I actually think this is a worse twist than the turkey baster because that just seemed like a needlessly written garbage plot point for shock value but this is the foundation of the entire story just being disregarded for a cheap bit of character peril.  

The rest of the movie was fine, I guess.  Another case of not shitty enough to be upset about and not good enough to remember in any capacity after I finish writing this post.  A completely average movie with some, once again, awful writing only worth watching if there's literally nothing else.