DON'T BREATHE 2

Stephen Lang is back as Norman Nordstrom aka The Blind Man to inflict punishment on those who break into his house and wish to take what's his. In this follow-up (although we're unsure how long after the events of the first film this takes place), Norman now has a daughter. After watching the previous film, I can only hope it wasn't in the way he originally intended to with Cindy and Rocky. Once again set in Detroit, the film opens with his daughter Phoenix (wonderfully played by 14-year-old Madelyn Grace) being trained survival skills by her unrelenting and harsh father. Before long however, a truck of criminals soon descends upon the house, looking for Norman and Phoenix. While there are some plot holes and the story isn't as strong as its predecessor, this surprised me as I wasn't too invested in seeing a sequel. However, in some ways it rehashes the original yet also expands upon it. The first film was a psychological thriller where sound was your enemy, which made for a very quiet film. This is the complete opposite: loud, violent, and bloody! It's also hard to be sympathetic to Norman's character after the events of part 1 and even parts of his storyline in this film. The film took a hard left about two-thirds of the way in that continued to raise my eyebrows as it grew but I'll give the crew and studio credit for having the balls to go through with it. Overall, I still prefer the original but this was a worthy sequel (still surprised I'm saying that) and could even be up for a third, given the right story. 6/10