You know when you’re just scrolling through Netflix’s catalogue and you stumble upon something so intriguing, you can’t help but watch it? That’s what happened to me today when I found Hush. “She lives in isolation, a world of silence. It doesn’t mean she’s easy prey. One intruder finds that out the hard way.” The premise is certainly not a complicated one – a woman with hearing loss (Kate Siegel) finds herself being stalked by a killer (John Gallagher, Jr.) with a crossbow in her home in the country.
Both leads are fascinating characters. Siegel is both hard of hearing and mute, due to a bout of meningitis as a teenager. Gallagher is given very little backstory and despite his relatively small stature, he is terrifying and imposing. The cast is extremely small, consisting of the 2 leads, the main character’s neighbour and her husband and finally, the main character’s sister over FaceTime. In addition, the entire movie took place in and around her house.
The story was intriguing and the first half of the movie was spent building up a great deal of tension, which was really effective later on when the film comes to a climax. Despite a few bumps and plot holes along the way that I am having difficulty getting past, I really enjoyed watching this movie… however, the pacing was a bit scatterbrained. At times, it was slow and ambling and then the next scene would be frantic and hard to follow. That’s not necessarily a negative, it just throws you off upon watching.
The film is definitely carried by the two leads, though, as I mentioned before. Their fantastic acting ability created a sense of reality and, at times, panic. Some reviews have been hailing it “one of the best horror films in modern history” but I don’t feel that that is accurate. The only thing I find revolutionary about this film is the fact that it uses very little dialogue, especially from the main character who communicates solely in American Sign Language. Other than that, it was a pretty par-for-the-course thriller… but an entertaining one at that, worth a watch or two!
Tagged: 2016, cat and mouse, deaf, Horror, hush, john gallagher jr, kate siegel, michael trucco, mike flanagan
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