Review By: Rob Sibley
Hold Your Breath is Jared Cohn's latest
blood bath of fun. Quick history lesson, HYB was the first Asylum
film to receive a theatrical release and it got one for a reason.
This is a kick ass film on all fronts. Notice I said film, not flick.
Big difference between the two, a flick is a film you spend 90
minutes with and you soon forget it. A film is something you'll
watch, appreciate and then re-watch and tell your friends about.
Hold Your Breath reminded me of the
horror films of the 80's. The ones that started out with a bang then
wasted no time in introducing it's leading players then jumped full
throttle into the action. This is one of those films that you watch
with your buddies at 2 in the morning while devouring pizza and
guzzling beer. The film has all the elements which are the three B's.
Blood (check), Breasts (Double check) and Beasts... well spirits. But you get my
point, this is a rollicking good time and one of the best experiences
I've had with a horror film in a while.
Were living in the day and age were
every Tuesday some new usually awful Independent horror film is made.
Studios are churning out direct to DVD dreck all the time with little
care for the fans. Asylum and Jared Cohn are doing horror proper. You
can tell that an extreme amount of love and time was put into this
picture. From the outstanding cinematography, stylish use of angles
and above average acting.
This is probably Asylum's best movie to
date. They are a company that like a fine wine, gets better with
time. Sure when they first jumped onto the scene with various
Mockbusters things were shaky. But over the years it's been fun to
watch the company become more grounded and producing more and more
original content.
Cohn is no stranger to the Asylum, he's
been with them for a while, writing, directing and acting. The dude
is a triple threat and I am a big fan of his work. He's an all around
cool dude. But this review is honest, just because I dig the dude
doesn't mean I'd immediately give It a good review. This is a well
made, well executed horror film that doesn't skimp on the tension,
blood and breasts and I appreciate that.
The plot itself isn't overly
complicated. We start out in the 1950's with a very nasty serial
killer being executed. From there we pop to modern times where a
group of High School friends get together for a camping trip... and
things become a tad hairy to say the least when they drive by a cemetery. It's not long before this doom grouped of twenty somethings
reach the building where our dear 1950's serial killer was executed.
I don't want to say much more because
it'll spoil the surprises and boy howdy is this film packed to the
brim with twists and turns. Also major props for a sex scene within
the first twenty minutes featuring a couple going at it on a morgue
table. Twisted fun stuff fills the 90 minutes running time, shit
gets nasty fast. Even a few sequences had this gorehound wincing...
two words car battery.
Also if you needed more motivation to
see this film, one of the main stars is uber hottie Katrina Bowden of
Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil & Piranha 3DD fame. She keeps her D's
covered up but is still smoking none the less and delivers a solid
performance.
The Asylum gives Hold Your Breath a
very nice Blu-ray release. You get the film presented in it's
original 1.78 : 1 aspect ratio with some 5.1 audio. It's a very
pleasing film to the eye, it was shot on a Red One Camera then
printed onto 35MM. So the the film doesn't have that “overly
digital” look that so many films shot on The Red One have. The
color palate is muted for the most part but towards the last twenty
minutes the colors really pop.
The 5.1 audio track gets the job done, very clean and
crisp.
The extras include a fun little gag
reel, a short but sweet making of featurette and some trailers for
other Asylum releases. My only gripe with the disk? A commentary
track would have been cool, but it's not a deal breaker.
So if your a fan of Asylum check this
out, if your a horror fan in general check it out. If your a die hard
horror fan? Buy this badboy on DVD or Blu-ray. HIGHLY recommended
And if your interested in finding out
more about the film and it's director feel free to check out my
interview with Mr. Cohn himself below.
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