For the most part Hush does not disappoint. But I do think they could and should have done more with the premise. The premise is that a deaf mute woman is being stalked and terrorized by a killer. Not knowing and not being aware of danger is one thing but knowing the danger is lurking and not being able to hear that must be terrifying. Unfortunately Hush doesn't manage to translate that terror that well.
The biggest problem is the killer. He ultimately is not that menacing. First of all he takes his mask of far too quickly. He is also pretty talkative. Remember Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees? Apart from the way they look it was their silence that made them so scary. When the killer in Hush makes his entrance he is wearing a white creepy mask. It instantly makes an impression. Immediately it made me wonder who was behind that mask. Director Mike Flanagan should have toyed around with this a little longer just long enough to put the fear of god into his audience. But ok so be it. It's not like it would make the home invasion less scary.
What I did found troubling was the fact that instead of actively stalking and hunting Maddie he decides to be patient and make her wait. He approaches her predicament as a fun game. Apparently he has all the time in the world and is completely fearless. This is something I find unrealistic. You can only do that if you have total control of the situation and you are fully isolated. While it did seem they were pretty far from civilization there were still people living near Maddie. They could have barged in or come by any moment. Why would someone like that take such a risk? Even when you don't know fear it would be very impractical. If this guy (played by John Gallagher Jr. who you might know from 10 Cloverfield Lane) really was playing with her why did he not do more to make her situation seem more impossible? But yes, this is a movie after all you do have to suspend disbelief a little bit. So moving on.
Of course from Maddie's point of view this is a completely horrifying situation to be in. Not being able to hear any sound and the killer telling her that he can waltz in the house whenever he likes. Naturally this would frighten the living daylights out of you. Again from her perspective pretty understandable. But the audience should also be made to be scared out of their wits. This could have been achieved by having the killer indeed waltzing in the house whenever he pleased to show Maddie and the viewer that he is playing around. Having him wait outside basically doing nothing doesn't make sense to me. Then again who knows what goes through a psycho killer's mind?
That being said Hush does provide some neat surprises that make up for the otherwise predictable film. So overall this is worth watching.
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