Hold Your Breath

Directed by Karrie Crouse and Will Joines, Hold Your Breath follows a 1930s mother of two (Sarah Paulson) as she attempts to protect her daughters from the fierce windstorms outside her door. Filmmakers Crouse and Joines, armed with the former’s screenplay, deliver a sluggish, often astonishingly deliberate endeavor that boasts few, if any, attributes designed to capture the viewer’s interest and attention, and while the picture’s opening stretch admittedly does contain a small kernel of promise (eg the characters’ efforts at surviving those extremely harsh conditions are impressively dogged), Hold Your Breath quickly segues into a meandering midsection that increasingly emphasizes a whole host of underwhelming (and far-from-chilling) spooky elements – with Crouse and Joines’ decision to stress is-the-threat-real-or-is-it-in-the-protagonist’s-head type shenanigans accelerating the picture’s pronounced downfall. Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s agreeable turn as a mysterious stranger notwithstanding, Hold Your Breath‘s second half (and especially its endless third act) cement its place as a seriously half-baked and interminable misfire – which is a shame, really, given the potential of its setting and Paulson’s committed performance.

* out of ****