‘Don’t Make a Sound’ Review: Micro-Budget Slashing With Blood but Almost No Story

Don’t Make a Sound is micro-budget slasher set in the woods around an isolated road.

Grace’s mother recently passed away, and the young girl is supposed to begin living with her aunt soon. Grace’s older sister Billie is driving her to her new home when their car breaks down. Stranded on a little-used road far from other people, the sisters have unknowingly stumbled into the hunting ground of a masked killer who likes to use a camcorder to record his victims in their dying moments.

An astounding lack of focus is the biggest issue with Don’t Make a Sound. The first twelve minutes show us a series of found-footage-style tapes depicting a killer and numerous victims. No context, just violence. For some reason there are also intertitles that show us the days of the week. There is no context for why we are being informed about the days, and it has no significance on anything later in the movie.

The next few minutes show us a young girl and her mother who are attacked by the killer. The mother doesn’t survive, and the girl is kidnapped. We don’t know the girl is is, and she isn’t seen again until near the end of the movie.

Then at about nineteen minutes into the movie, we finally meet Grace and her sister Billie. We get enough backstory on them to get the plot moving, but then there is an eight-minute driving sequence where nothing happens other than Grace complaining about the music Billie plays, and Billie reminding her sister that their mother died. Finally, well over thirty minutes in, the premise of the movie begins to take shape.

The biggest section of Don’t Make a Sound follows Grace as she runs through the woods to avoid a killer who is dressed in a yellow hazmat suit and a gas mask. We watch as Grace runs and hides while the killer murders random people who pass by. It’s a long and drawn-out process, and it quickly becomes monotonous. And the finale doesn’t do a lot to save it. It’s a bloody ending, but it’s also awkward and tropey.

This movie also hits on a specific pet peeve of mine. If you’re going to incorporate a found-footage aesthetic into your movie (the killer uses a camcorder that looks like it uses Mini-DV tapes), try to make it look like the format it’s supposed to be recorded on. You don’t need multiple tracking issues and static overlays to make it look like tape. I own many tapes that are decades old that look better today than the footage created for Don’t Make a Sound. But even if you do want to go overboard with the overlays, at least make sure they stay consistent from shot to shot (which this movie does not do).

Also, having the “recording” display on screen at all times is annoying. I suppose it’s meant to be like you’re looking through the viewfinder of the camcorder, but if that’s the case, then there shouldn’t be any tape artifacts showing up. If we’re instead supposed to be watching these as actual tapes being played back, then the “REC” display shouldn’t be showing. And if it is showing, then that means it’s on the tape and it should be subjected to the same interference as the rest of the picture. None of those things are taken into account in Don’t Make a Sound. I know I’m digressing quite a lot, and I’m probably thinking about it too hard, but it bugs me. But, this kind of thing points to a lack of attention to detail, so it’s worth bringing up.

Star Rating: 1 out of 5

I enjoy tons of questionably-crafted, no-budget slasher movies. But I found my interest in Don’t Make a Sound waning far too often. There’s only an outline of a story, and the kills aren’t fun enough to make up for the lack of quality in other areas. If you’re still interested, I suggest checking it out on Tubi since it’s free.

Don’t Make a Sound is currently streaming on transactional platforms including Amazon Prime Video, as well as ad-supported streamers like Tubi.