Hulu’s psychological horror takes a descent into paranoia and madness

According to Robert Scucci
| Published 28 seconds ago

I decided a long time ago that I would stop seeking out psychological horror films that depend on the “unreliable protagonist” trope. Unfortunately, I didn’t read my own note when I watched last year’s Hold your breath on Hulu. I can’t say I’m mad at myself, but I’m disappointed that I was expecting something different considering that this movie is a period piece set in 1930s Oklahoma after the dust bowl has taken over once thriving farmland. decimated by the elements.

But don’t be fooled by the refreshing setting, as it has all the trappings of a trope Hold your breath:

It centers on a grief-stricken mother named Margaret Bellum (Sarah Paulson), Hold your breath is a by-the-numbers exercise in exploring the paranoia and heartbreak our female protagonist experiences as she struggles to combat the dark forces intent on taking her children’s lives while her husband Henry (Bill Heck) works on a construction project in Philadelphia.

A familiar building

Hold your breath he wastes no time introducing a source of evil that only vaguely makes you question the validity of Margaret’s experiences. But if you’re well-versed in psychological horror, you’ll find yourself sitting with your Bingo card of tropes as you tick all the boxes that make this film another generic, quasi-supernatural experience.

In a house covered in thick layers of dust from floor to ceiling, Margaret is raising her two daughters, Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins). Grief-stricken after the death of her youngest daughter, Ada, Margaret takes prescribed sleeping pills as a means to prevent sleepwalking episodes after experiencing a psychotic break before the events that unfold. Hold your breath. At first, Margaret seems to have her mental health under control, but that all changes after Rose reads Ollie a horror story about a ghoul that hides in clouds of dust called “The Gray Man”.

The gray man

Knowing that “The Gray Man” is fiction, Margaret writes off her initial dismay Hold your breath as a figment of her daughter’s overactive imagination after reading a horror story. However, Margaret’s imagination gets the best of her after hearing about a drifter who murdered her neighbors in circumstances that mirror the events depicted in “The Gray Man”.

Shortly after learning of a gruesome crime, Margaret finds a drifter in her barn who reveals himself to be a preacher named Wallace (Ebon Moss-Bachrach).

Margaret becomes suspicious of Wallace when the circumstances of his arrival don’t quite add up. Wallace assures Margaret that her husband Henry sent him to check on his family while he was passing through the Oklahoma Territory. Possessing supernatural healing powers, Wallace threatens the Bellum family when his intentions are questioned, putting Margaret on high alert for any suspicious behavior.

Margaret stops taking her medication to be more alert, seals up the house and lives in hiding with her daughters as she tries to ward off the evil spirit that now controls her family. As he becomes more delirious with each passing day, Wallace’s presence becomes a force of evil Hold your breath which comes and goes as quickly as the dust storms that destroyed crops in previous years. As Margaret becomes increasingly paranoid, the line between fact and fiction blurs equally as she begins to experience new episodes of sleepwalking.

A solid entry point, but not for connoisseurs

Hold your breath is one of those movies you’ll want to show your friends who are interested in psychology thrillersbut I have yet to tire of seeing similar premises played out in other films occupying the subgenre. It boasts supernatural elements that seem to confirm our protagonist’s memories of events, Hold your breath has a healthy amount of tense moments and jump cuts to keep casual viewers on the edge of their seats.

However, the more seasoned lover of psychological thrillers will find themselves yawning once things start to heat up, because I guarantee you they’ve seen this familiar story with an unreliable protagonist a dozen times before, but in different settings.

Hold your breath is a Hulu original movie and you can stream it with an active subscription.

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