Doctor says it’s just too much dust in the air
Main Cast: Sarah Paulson, Amiah Miller
Director: Karrie Crouse
Can we all just agree that Sarah Paulson is an American treasure? She stood out immediately in the sadly short-lived series American Gothic, and really came into her own across many, many seasons of American Horror Story where she became the glue that held that series together. And she’s still doing it in HOLD YOUR BREATH, a 2024 horror movie from writer/director Karrie Crouse.
Set in the 1930 Oklahoma dustbowl, Paulson stars as Margaret, mother of three: Rose, Ollie, and the dear departed Ada. Their father is off working, sending money back home when he can, but the recent drought and dust storms have slowed down the mail and things are getting sketchy on the family farm.
Their crops are dead, their one remaining cow is about milked dry, and Margaret is starting to have more and more frequent … episodes. She spends every night sealing every crack in the house with whatever fabric she can find, sure the dust that constantly seeps into the house will make her or her daughters sick.
Rose is always reading Ollie a story about the Grey Man who seeps into your lungs and takes you over. Margaret tells Rose to stop, trying to convince Ollie the Grey Man isn’t read. Until she hears someone moving around in the barn and starts to wonder if maybe he’s real after all.
HOLD YOUR BREATH is a tale of trauma and mental health, while also being a story of family stress and a community on the edge of collapse. Paulson constantly rides the line between strong, stable head of the family and terrified woman on the verge of a breakdown, and she does it without the expected flip flopping back and forth; instead she portrays both traits at once, making Margaret a truly tragic character.
Amiah Miller as Rose does a lot of heavy lifting herself, the oldest daughter trying to protect her little sister from the elements, from life, and the mother who’s supposed to take care of them.
Crouse straddles a line herself, never letting us get too comfortable with this story that is supernatural one minute, and heavily grounded in reality the next. The viewer in constantly engaged but never sure what’s about to happen until it happens.
I’ve had this movie on my watchlist for a while and am kicking myself for not making the time to watch it sooner. But now I have and it just solidifies two things I already knew. 1) Paulson is an American treasure, as previously stated and 2) I’m always quick to watch the terrible movies but I take way too long to get to the great ones. And HOLD YOUR BREATH is one of the great ones. Honestly, with Paulson’s performance alone this one would have gotten 3 stars. But everyone else was giving their all too, resulting in an easy 5 star movie.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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