Photograph: Allstar/Sony Pictures
A grimly efficient but somewhat depressing horror picture pits a trio of housebreaking youngsters against a blind war veteran. Sound design is cranked up to a nerve-shredding overload as the teenagers negotiate creaking floorboards and crunching glass to try and escape the deadly old man with a gun. The camera lurches towards a sledgehammer above a workbench, leaving us in no doubt that it will be employed in some horribly gory way later on in the film. But while the director, Fede Alvarez (who was responsible for the 2013 remake of The Evil Dead), pushes all the torture porn tension buttons, it’s hard to care much what happens to any of the highly unsympathetic cast.
