Mike Flanagan is a director to keep his eye on, especially with the long-delayed Before I Wake. His knack for taking familiar horror tropes and adding a little twist to them has allowed him to make some of the best psychological horror films of the past few years in Oculus, Absentia and now Hush. Hush takes the ever-popular home invasion trope and adds an interesting surprise to the plot: the main character is deaf. This makes for some incredibly intense sequences where someone who can hear could easily get out of the situation, and she has to rely only her sight and touch to survive the night. Even if the home invasion plot doesn't offer much new, there are some incredibly original sequences that arise due to her disability. Also, the intruder cut the lights to the house, so she can hardly use her eyesight to help her anyway. The deaf woman, Maddie, is an author, so she has to come up with several different endings to her books and decide on the right one. She does this several times in the movie when trying to figure out how to get out alive including one part that provides one of the best shocks in the movie. Mike Flanagan creates a home invasion thriller that distinguishes itself from the pack by being both original and brutally effective.
