Good morning 🐣

You know how “Psycho” and the original “Friday the 13th” are both about a boy and his mother but from opposing angles? (If not, you really should watch them asap.) Well it’s time for another double feature — I really spoil you people — and the films I’ve chosen this week are both about home invasions, but their set-ups are the inverse of each other:

1. In 1967’s “Wait Until Dark” (Criterion Channel and on demand), the invaders are the villains.

2. In 2016’s “Don’t Breathe” (FXNOW, fuboTV, and on demand), the invaders are… still technically bad people, but the homeowner is definitely not great.

And I guess I should mention that the homeowners in both films are blind. That part is kind of crucial in this case. It’s actually the main reason I chose this pairing.

So anyways, welcome to the Audrey Hepburn vs. Stephen Lang smackdown. FIGHT!!

🔔 Round One 🔔

Audrey Hepburn. She transcends time in pop consciousness unlike any other star of her era. Every single generation recognizes Holly Golightly from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” But ask most people to name another one of her movies and maybe they can come up with “My Fair Lady?” It’s kind of wild. In “Wait Until Dark” she plays Susy Hendrix. Susy lost her sight in a car crash and is attending a class for the blind, so this must be a recent development for her. She gets frightened and frustrated sometimes trying to navigate her home and the city, while her photographer husband, Sam, gives her a little tough love to encourage her independence. Hepburn is pure movie star in this role: always her fabulous self, but always in service to the film.

“Don’t Breathe” features the fabulously Nordic-named Norman Nordstrom. Played by Stephen Lang, Norman is an “Army vet loner,” as one character calls him, blinded by shrapnel and living with his dog in a completely abandoned neighborhood of Detroit, where weeds are growing in and around decrepit houses. His young daughter was apparently run over by a little rich girl, probably driving drunk, whose family paid him off in six figures, a tasty target for delinquents. “This guy’s the last man standing.” When we finally hear him speak, years of living alone have left him sounding like a croaking frog.

🔔 Round Two 🔔

Meet Money, Rocky, and Alex, three Detroiters (Detroitians?) trying to make ends meet. Alex uses his dad’s security company master key to break into homes undetected. Rocky just wants to take her little sister to California to start fresh. (You think it’s expensive in Detroit? Woo-wee, you’re in for a surprise if you survive this movie.) And Money is just doing what his name does best. Together they slip in to Norman’s abode, in search of the fabled 300k payout. As they wander the house, the camera shows us things that we all know are going to come into play later: a shard of glass on the floor, a bunch of tools on the wall, some home video playing of a little girl.

“Wait Until Dark” starts off with the closeup shot of a doll being cut open and little baggies of heroin stuffed inside. Lisa, the woman smuggling the drugs, does the Ol’ Switcheroo with an unsuspecting stranger at the airport. We then cut to two con men, Mike and Carlino, who think they’re visiting Lisa’s apartment. She’s left a note welcoming them inside and Carlino really takes that to heart, making himself an entire spread of sandwich ingredients. This man knows how to eat! But instead of Lisa they’re greeted by Roat (played by the great Alan Arkin) and Lisa’s corpse and — wait a minute, this wasn’t Lisa’s apartment after all, but Sam’s and Susy’s! It turns out Sam was said unsuspecting-switcheroo-recipient, so Mike and Carlino get blackmailed by Roat into clearing out the corpse and trying to find the drug doll. All of a sudden our hero, Susy Hendrix, comes striding in, blind and completely unaware of her silent new roommates. And the game is afoot.

🔔 Round Three 🔔

I was expecting “Wait Until Dark” to be similar to “Don’t Breathe,” that these three con men would be roaming about, carefully avoiding Susy and trying not to make any noise. But that only lasts for a single scene. The rest of the movie involves them going in and out of her apartment as various characters, gaslighting her into thinking her husband is cheating on her and perhaps even a murderer, trying to convince her to give up the doll. At one point she notices that some of these characters are actually all Roat, the mastermind behind the entire charade, because their shoes all squeak the same way.

In “Don’t Breathe,” Norman shows off his hearing and smelling skills. He’s also all business; after his first encounter with the invaders, he immediately padlocks the door and boards up a window. In the basement he cuts the lights and the camera switches to a kind of night vision, giving everyone’s eyes and faces an alien look. It’s full tension as Rocky, Alex, and Money try to evade Norman and his dog in this death trap.

🔔 Final Round 🔔

In fact Norman has the most intense dog ever: crawling through air ducts, ripping through cars, eager to tear you apart like a chew toy. It reminds me of why I’m a cat daddy. And the movie only gets insane from there. Probably the most unsettling part in the entire thing is the viscous drip from a turkey baster. I will say no more.

Meanwhile Susy is left to tangle with Ol’ Squeaky Shoes himself. He teases her face with a shawl and his gloved hands, brandishes a knife. But don’t forget that Audrey Hepburn is a bona fide badass. She douses him in gasoline and plunges the apartment into darkness. “Don’t move. I still have your knife,” she warns after disarming him. And then she lights a match. It runs out, making the room (and our TV screens) pitch black. She lights another match. And another. Taunting him. Turning the tables in the coolest way possible. She’s in control of the dark. “Wait Until Dark” is apparently based on a play and I’d love to see this bit live on stage. Boy oh boy.

Now you might be asking, Who won, Joe? Who won the Audrey Hepburn vs. Stephen Lang smackdown?

But art isn’t a competition, my friends.

We all won.

Until next time! 👋