For a film about the way isolation can start to tear us apart, it’s perhaps fitting that “Hold Your Breath” can barely hold together.
This isn’t for lack of trying on the part of lead Sarah Paulson, who throws herself into the role and comes out covered in dust for her efforts as the rubble of the film nearly swallows her whole. Neither a successful psychological thriller nor a compelling work of horror, it’s all built around the steady unraveling of a matriarch who finds herself facing a variety of threats while isolated with her two daughters. It’s a promising hook, similar to “The Wind” from 2018, though the film never gets a handle on what to do with it.