#Hush movie movie#
#Hush movie tv#

#Hush movie movie#

To be fair, it's not unusual for a horror movie or thriller to be centered around a single house, but Flanagan and his key collaborators, including cinematographer James Kniest and production designer Elizabeth Boller, give the modern home a sleek and fashionable look, which is both a reflection of Maddie's tidy personality and possibly a peek into what drives the masked killer to want to destroy it. His direction here makes excellent use of the setting, and his editing keeps the pace relentless.

#Hush movie tv#

Mike Flanagan has been directing movies and TV shows for years, but it was the sneaky success of Oculus that made him pop on the horror front. Maddie may not be the strongest physical specimen around, but her intelligence, independence, and adaptability give her a leg up when Mr. (She's not the type to be pining away for a relationship or a family to make her life feel worthwhile.) She needs to start cracking on her next book, but is experiencing Blank Page Syndrome, familiar to any writer. It might appear to be a big house for a single person, yet Maddie feels entirely secure in her isolation. That hasn't stopped her from carving out success as a novelist, which has enabled her to buy a home deep in the woods.

Maddie lost her hearing and her ability to speak as a youngster due to illness. Complications arise, among them the multitude of challenges that arise from trying to breach a two-story house that has been well-secured by its wary occupant, and the action becomes appropriately more jagged, violent, and bloody.Īs might be expected from a script cowritten by its star, Hush paints an altogether heroic portrait of Maddie, yet delves sufficiently into the character's fears and shortcomings to make a living, breathing person out of her. The original screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel races onward from there. One night, a masked man (John Gallagher Jr.) appears at her doorstep, determined to kill her. The setup is simple: a deaf woman named Maddie (Kate Siegel) lives alone in a remote location. On the good side, the nostalgia factor is strong with this one. Nevertheless, Hush continues to reveal that Flanagan is a filmmaker worth keeping a keen eye upon, and I am still excited to see what comes next.Exciting, tense, and stylish, Hush plays like the extended third act of an 80s slasher movie. Thus the shock is absorbed too readily and the surprises become few, especially in the final moments. The film is so economical that anything introduced is essentially guaranteed to play a part later, but there are so few of these introductions that it becomes a waiting game for when certain elements will inevitably come into play. Hush is impressive, though it does fall victim to some heavy-handed foreshadowing that ultimately takes away some of the ending’s satisfaction. What Hush adds to this company is our ability to see various scenarios play out in Maddie’s mind as she weighs her options, sometimes purposefully misleading the viewer to believe that things have gone terribly awry before pulling back to Maddie’s actual present state.

The result is a tension-filled single location drama which thankfully forgoes the normally predictable jump scares, and follows in the tradition of 1967’s Wait Until Dark and 1971’s See No Evil, which followed blind protagonists. Also, while not a gory film, the violence, when it occurs, is effectively shocking. I’ve always been partial to cat-and-mouse stories where opponents must try to outwit each other, and Hush displays this in exciting ways with both Maddie and her stalker having to use their brains to overcome a faster, stronger enemy. The script is tight and Flanagan does great at creating tension, utilizing the relatively small location. Maddie lives alone in a wooded area and it isn’t long before a masked psychopath is taunting her and biding his time before he’ll enter her home to kill her.

The film is co-written by and stars Flanagan’s wife, Kate Siegel, who plays Maddie, a deaf author who lost her hearing after a bout of bacterial meningitis when she was a teen. Therefore it was with considerable anticipation that I awaited his 2016 release, Hush. Director Mike Flanagan quickly gained a reputation for solid genre contributions with 2011’s Absentia and 2014’s Oculus, the latter especially with which I was particularly impressed.