Hold Your Breath (2024) Review: Sarah Paulson Delivers a Solid Performance in Dust Bowl-Era Psychological Horror
Karrine Crouse and Will Joines’ feature debut Hold Your Breath (originally titled Dust when it was first announced two years ago) boasts an intriguing mix of the Dust Bowl-era man-made ecological disaster with psychological horror, supernatural elements and maternal drama. The latter refers to Sarah Paulson’s character, who plays the overprotective mother Margaret Bellum looking after her two daughters, older Rose (Amiah Miller) and younger, hearing-impaired Ollie (Deaf actress Alona Jane Robbins) during the turbulent early 1930s era in Oklahoma Panhandle.
Her husband, in the meantime, is far away from home for a job in the hope of bringing home more money. They used to have a third child named Ada (an uncredited Emily Katherine Ford), who has unfortunately died from scarlet fever. However, Margaret remains steadfast in trying her best to take care of her two daughters while coping with various problems. This includes dealing with frequent dust storms and famine due to crop shortages. They have a cow as a source of sustenance but eventually produce less milk. It doesn’t help either when Margaret has her issues as she constantly suffers from recurring nightmares and relies heavily on sleeping pills to get by.
Then, there’s the storybook that which Margaret’s daughters have been obsessed over a mythical figure known as “The Grey Man”, who can seep through the cracks in the form of dust and possesses its victims to commit terrible things. This leads to a series of psychological and supernatural paranoia that something is haunting them amidst the ravaging dust storms.
Crouse and Joines deftly combine the technical wizardry of computer-generated dust storm effects with Zoë White’s atmospheric cinematography and Colin Stetson’s eerie score during some of the tense and suspenseful moments. More on the cinematography as White successfully captured the ominous dread with a desaturated colour palette primarily used for depicting the dry and barren landscape of the Dust Bowl period.
Crouse, who receives the sole screenwriting credit, even ratchets up the intrigue by introducing a mysterious stranger later in the movie. That stranger in question is Wallace (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who claims he’s a preacher and even knows her husband. Margaret doesn’t believe any single word he says at first until he proves his healing powers, which miraculously stops Rose’s nosebleed. Is Wallace truly a saviour or simply an evil in disguise?
The movie also addresses Margaret’s increasing state of mental breakdown on the verge of losing her sanity and here is where Sarah Paulson skillfully plays the role without succumbing to chewing scenery. She is no stranger to appearing in the horror genre over the past few years including Bird Box, Glass and Run. The latter was the last time we saw her in a feature film before she spent time on television acting in series like Ratched, American Horror Story and American Crime Story. Her feature-film comeback after a four-year gap since Run resulted in one of her best performances to date. She is also blessed by her stellar co-stars Amiah Miller and Alona Jane Robbins, both of which deliver solid supporting turns as Margaret’s daughters while Ebon Moss-Bachrach deserves equal mention as the alleged preacher Wallace.
As much as I was impressed by Paulson’s committed performance and some of the combined themes of motherhood, grief, paranoid delusion and isolation, Hold Your Breath tends to be repetitive in generating scares. The movie may clock just 94 minutes but the erratic pacing can be off-putting in some scenes. Not to mention the payoff that makes me feel as if Crouse and Joines are losing steam in the end. Still, with some of the shortcomings aside, Hold Your Breath remains a decent feature debut for Karrine Crouse and Will Joines and here’s hoping they can improve better in the future.
Hold Your Breath is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
