Coming up with an original horror antagonist is no easy feat. We’ve seen stars battle killer clowns, malicious breezes, and cocaine-fueled bears, but with Hold Your Breath, Sarah Paulson journeys once again into the world of psychological horror to face two formidable new opponents: dust and insomnia. Trauma and natural disasters are serious issues with proven potential in the horror genre, but this movie manages to underutilize both, leaving a raw and committed Paulson giving her all for limited payoff. While the film showcases a couple of effective scares and strong performances from its leading cast, Karrie Crouse and Will Joines’ Hold Your Breath ultimately gives its talented ensemble nothing to work with, resulting in a tedious watch that will likely leave you feeling bored, underwhelmed, and in desperate need of a shower.

What Is ‘Hold Your Breath’ About?

Hold Your Breath follows the Bellum family, consisting of mother, Margaret (Paulson), and her two daughters, Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Robbins), who are living through the Dust Bowl disaster in 1930’s Oklahoma. With her third daughter having died a few years prior, Margaret frets tirelessly over the well-being of her surviving children, spending her days filling cracks in the walls with fabric and wiping down ever-sandy surfaces.

One night before bed, Rose reads Ollie a book about The Grey Man, a menacing figure who travels around in the dust and makes whoever inhales him commit vicious crimes. Overwhelmed by maternal stress and dangerous bouts of sleepwalking, Margaret begins to fear that The Grey Man is coming for her and her daughters and becomes dangerously obsessed with keeping her family together — no matter the cost.

‘Hold Your Breath’ Has Some Good Body Horror, But Relies on Cheap Jump Scares
In terms of its horror elements, Hold Your Breath hits us with a decent jump scare pretty early on, but then proceeds to hit us with the exact same jump scare about 15 times. Rather than building varied, atmospheric tension, the film often opts for the “Ah! Loud noise and abrupt cuts!” approach to frightening us, which, after watching Paulson gasp awake from the same nightmare for the umpteenth time, gets stale and predictable. To the film’s credit, there are a handful of good shocks and some solid body horror, including one drawn-out, nauseating moment of cross-stitching gone wrong.

However, Hold Your Breath’s thriller elements could have greatly benefitted from giving the third act more time to relish in its tense, cat-and-mouse style chase. Instead, precious minutes of the short runtime are spent watching Margaret work on the same sewing project for weeks, pointing to the film’s issue with pacing. It’s also never really clear if the supernatural elements are, in fact, supernatural, and by the end of the movie, it’s kind of hard to care. Honorable mentions of the genre can be given to some random horror movie clichés littered throughout, including, but not limited to, a random baby doll, dramatic zoom-ins on words in a scary book, and a kid wearing a weird mask that literally wouldn’t protect him from the dust whatsoever, and was obviously just included to look eerie.

Sarah Paulson Does Her Best With a Slow, Uneven Script
Image via TIFF

Hold Your Breath’s saving grace is undeniably its lead, and Sarah Paulson’s devoted, rigid Margaret gives weight to the thin story. Margaret’s descent into madness on her quest to preserve her family unit is expertly played by the seasoned actress, and her wide, wild eyes say as much, if not more, than her frantic dialogue. Likewise, Amiah Miller and Alona Robbins give powerful performances as Margaret’s two daughters, as they wrestle between loyalty to their mother and fear of her. Miller’s performance as Rose is particularly strong, and Paulson has a worthy scene partner in the young performer who balances panic and dread with an inherent sweetness.

The small cast is rounded out by more great talents, with The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Annaleigh Ashford also bringing depth to their supporting roles. Moss-Bachrach plays a mysterious preacher who arrives at the Bellum house unannounced, portraying the suspicious character with nice subtlety, and Ashford plays Margaret’s sister, Esther, getting to be loving, sad, and scary at any given moment, and doing each with apparent ease.

When the dust settles, what we’re left with in Hold Your Breath is a slow, at times confusing, not-that-thrilling thriller about a mother’s grief, the terrifying power of nature, and possibly a dust demon. While Sarah Paulson is a much-needed beacon in the movie’s barren landscape, the film manages to be predictable and puzzling all at once, and doesn’t offer the horror elements necessary to help it succeed in the genre. All in all, the cast’s varied performances help to elevate the story, and a few skin-crawling moments are appreciated amid long stretches of virtual nothingness. However, if you’re looking for a supernatural thriller that will shock and excite you, well… don’t hold your breath.

Hold Your Breath had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. starting October 3.

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