HUSH

Hush Movie Review

Maddie (Kate Siegel) is a deaf writer living in a house out in the woods and struggling to finish the follow-up to her first successful novel. Her mundane life becomes more interesting one night, however, as a masked killer shows up at her door. This 2016 film from Mike Flanagan (Oculus) fires on all cylinders, resulting in a truly terrifying movie. The premise itself is scary enough--a home invasion--but add to this the victim being deaf and not able to know, at times, there is somebody watching her, and you get edge of your seat terror.

For God's sake, turn around!

It is by pure chance the movie I most recently reviewed before this one has a similar storyline, but if you look at that review you will see everything that is wrong with using silence to build tension in a film--Hush is the complete opposite, using silence to leave the viewer biting his or her nails while trembling in fear. Adding to the uneasy feeling is knowing the madman isn't there to simply kill Maddie--he wants to make her suffer psychologically, terrorizing her from outside the house while reminding her he can come into the house and finish her off any time he wishes. The acting is solid--Siegel is a compassionate victim while John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane) is genuinely creepy as the killer.

Jehovah's Witness?

If this isn't enough for your liking there's also a fair bit of blood and gore thrown in, and some of the death scenes are absolutely brutal. Recognize this movie is not everybody's cup of tea--a quick search reveals the run time of this film is 81 minutes and less than 15 minutes of that is spoken dialogue, so if an atmospheric buildup is not your thing, you may want to skip it. Personally I believe Hush to be one of the finest horror films of recent years--it is the movie The Strangers wanted to be.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 8

Hush Movie Trailer

Here's an added bonus: The song that has been in my head since I watched this movie...