HULU'S Dust Bowl Era Thriller "HOLD YOUR BREATH" (2024) Will Leave You Gasping! (REVIEW)
When we heard that Hulu had picked up a 1930s Great Depression Era Dust Bowl horror movie from Searchlight Pictures you can imagine our excitement. This unique period is often overlooked in genre aside from the occasional gangster movie showcasing John Dillinger or Pretty Boy Floyd trying to make it over State lines. We’ve been patiently waiting for a return to this time and place since HBO’s criminally overlooked horror series “CARNIVALE” was canceled in 2005. That series introduced us to a period in American history where suffering was on the surface of everything and people were equal parts hopeful for a better tomorrow and devastated about their current today. It’s a tragic time that doesn’t lend itself readily to genre storytelling. Previous decades have seen some of cinema’s finest features using this time and place to great effect, movies like “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Sullivan’s Travels” and “Paper Moon,” but there have been very few horror movies and thrillers amongst these films. In Karrie Crouse and Will Joines, “Hold Your Breath,” those themes of loss and desperation are ever present and fully explored, supported by the breathtaking vista of the Oklahoma landscape, but are those elements enough to captivate and terrify the audience?
THE PLOT
Oklahoma, 1930s. The Bellum family house rests in a valley of dirt as clouds of dust blot out the sun. Margaret (Sarah Paulson, “American Horror Story,” “Run”) and her two daughters, Rose (Amiah Miller, “Henry Danger,” “War for the Planet of the Apes”) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins), tend to their sparse farm while Margaret’s husband has left in pursuit of work. As they struggle to survive the punishing Dust Bowl environment, a mysterious stranger (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear,” “Andor”) arrives, threatening all they know and love. But is the threat a closer one?
OUR TAKE
We have to be careful here because saying too much can easily spoil this movie and that would be a shame, it certainly deserves your time and attention. Gorgeously shot and incredibly well acted, “Hold Your Breath,” is delightfully confounding in that the viewer is never sure what’s real or imagined.
The story takes place in Oklahoma during the devastating Dust Bowl Era. Margaret’s Husband has gone East to find work so he can support the family in these troubled times. That leaves Margaret, already reeling from losing a daughter, to care for and raise her two children, played by Miller and Robbins, who do an amazing job as sisters whose love for each other stabilizes a household already on fragile ground, both literally and figuratively. Add to this a stranger with an ability to heal whose motives are murky at best and the ever-present dread of encroaching dust storms and you have a pressure cooker set to explode.
Crouse and Joines do a fantastic job of upping the stakes and keeping the audience guessing as to what’s really happening. That air of uncertainty lends itself marvelously to keeping the viewer off balance throughout the film. Rose introduces Ollie, and eventually Margaret, to the Folk Mythology of The Grey Man, a sinister presence that can turn to dust in order to slip through cracks and crevices to be inhaled by the victim and succumb to its dark desires. It’s at this moment that Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s “Wallace” is introduced and reality on the farm is tested in both horrific and devastating ways. Is the victim truly possessed by The Grey Man or are they just suffering from the very real stress of living in an arid hellscape with slim hope for salvation? To say more would be a mistake. This is the type of film that benefits from repeat viewing. We will say this, pay careful attention to the last 30 seconds, you may, or may not find your answers there.
BOTTOM LINE
“Hold Your Breath” is a welcome addition to Dust Bowl Era cinema and the horror/thriller genre. It captures the true dread and devastation of the time and Sarah Paulson and Ebon Moss-Bachrach hold the screen in a vise grip. There’s a set piece 45 minutes in that will have the hair on the back of your neck standing. We certainly welcome more of this kind of period horror.
THE DETAILS
Directed by:
Screenplay by
Cast:
WHERE CAN YOU WATCH IT?
“Hold Your Breath” is currently streaming on Hulu.
Stay up to date with “The Dark Side Of Pop Culture” by following Macabre Daily on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Sean O'Connor has been an avid horror fan for the last 4 decades. From the Universal Classics through the New French Extremity, Sean has tried to expand his knowledge and love for the genre through film and literature and looks forward to reviewing all types of world cinema with Macabre Daily.