Oculus director Mike Flanagan is back again, this time with a smaller-budgeted horror pic called Hush. Netflix picked up the flick and released it recently, so I figured I'd check it out. The movie is essentially your standard home invasion thriller, but with some interesting minor tweaks, like the fact that our female lead is deaf. I personally like movies that give the leads some sort of handicap, as they tend to offer different scenarios than what we're normally accustomed to seeing. Unfortunately, while Hush manages to deliver some decent tension, it fails to really deliver anything new to the table.

The story focuses on a deaf woman named Maddie, who spends most of her time writing her latest novel inside the comfort of her secluded home. Things are nice and peaceful with the young author until one night when a masked crossbow-wielding killer decides to terrorize her. And that's pretty much the extent of the storyline.

The movie does a fairly good job playing on the fact that our heroine isn't able to hear, so the killer manages to do certain things and sneak around easier than he normally would, resulting in some tense scenes at times. I was a little saddened to see the killer remove his creepy mask early on, which only proved to humanize and make him seem less intimidating, but it's understandable in terms of progressing the plot and communicating with our lead. It's also a refreshing change from what we normally get from other similarly-themed films.

Having said all that, the pic really didn't need to be as long as it was, because there were times when it clearly didn't know what to do with itself. There's only so much you can do with such a simple premise anyway, especially when it basically only focuses on two characters. And some scenes just seemed a bit drawn out, especially when the lead would make frustrating or illogical decisions. Though I'll give that a pass since it is a horror film afterall.

Negative aside, I did enjoy the film to some extent. The pacing wasn't bad and there were some nice tense sequences. It really did seem like it tried to do some things different, but never quite getting there. As it stands it's only a slightly above average home invasion pic.

In the end the movie really didn't really give us anything new. The fact that our lead was deaf offered some slightly different scenarios and we got a more humanized killer, but aside from that it's mostly your standard home invasion flick. I'd say it's worth a look if you like these types of films, but don't expect much you haven't already seen.