Horror Movie Review: Hold Your Breath (2012)

Van Hausen (Keith Allan) is an ex-clergyman turned mass murderer who is being executed for his crimes. It’s the electric chair for him while his victim’s families get to watch. The warden offers Van Hausen a chance to repent and apologise for his crime, but the man instead chooses to rant, rave and hurl abuse. He manages to break free, kill the warden before he is subdued and electrocuted.

That’s the opening and unfortunately the best part of the movie. As we then jump to present day where a group of young adults are on a road trip! As they pass a cemetery, one of them named Jerry (Katrina Bowden) recants an urban legend. One that says you should hold your breath when you pass a cemetery otherwise you could breathe in an evil spirit.

One of the group, the pot-smoking Kyle (Seth Cassell). chooses not to hold his breath which allows the vengeful spirit of Van Hausen to possess him. With a new body under his control, Van Hausen plans to continue his killing spree. While the rest of the group decide to wander around/have sex/play with the electric chair in the abandoned prison that once housed the killer.

Will anyone be able to survive and how do you stop a spirit that can jump from body to body the moment they breathe in?

This movie relies heavily on its cast to put in good performances and sadly, it’s so far from what we get. Although, it’s hard to blame the actors completely because the characters of this movie are so bland and boring. Halfway through I still didn’t know their names or what their relationship statuses where.

There’s a ton of bad dialogue here, so much so that even attempts to deliver it with gusto fall flat. I mean how on earth is anyone supposed to make this sort of line work:

You’d rather jack off a bobcat than stay here.

It’s just bad but it’s not the only thing that makes Hold Your Breath a stinker.

Visually, it has all the hallmarks of a TV movie and the effects of a low-budget indie offering. Nowhere is that more obvious then when the spirit of Van Hausen leaves one body for the next. Then we have the story. Which begins to really drag around the half-way point. You will start to feel every minute of its 87-minute run-time. It just doesn’t have enough meat to the bones to sustain a full-length feature. Something the filmmakers seemed to be aware of as even a softcore sex scene is overly long!

A boring story, bland characters, below average acting and bad effects. Hold Your Breath when passing this movie.