Headscratchers / Don't Breathe

• Why would the thieves think the Blind Man's settlement money would be in cash, just sitting somewhere in the house? Wouldn't most people think that the money would come in the form of a check or already sitting in a bank account somewhere? Speaking of money, where did the rest of it come from? The background said the settlement was for $300,000 but Alex noticed that it looked liked there was $1 million in the safe. Was the Blind Man just saving all that money?
  • The exact wording was 'at least $300,000', basing on the movie, not the trailer dialogue. As for the 'why in cash', you can probably go the long way round and assume that they assumed that it was worth the risk to see if there was cash around. Obviously, it wasn't worth it.
  • As for what the Blind Man was doing saving the money, maybe he was holding onto it until the child was born? If he did mean it when he said he'd planned on releasing Cindy once she gave birth, he had to have known she'd go right to the police after being freed. Maybe he was planning to flee with the child and use the money to start a new life somewhere. Keeping it right in the house would allow him to leave quickly without having to deal with the bank.
  • They say it, they aren't sure the money is in the house, but they think it is worth to try and find out. Plus knowing the Blind Man is an old veteran they could assume he was too paranoid to trust the system and keep the money somewhere other than in the house. Which is probably true, he IS paranoid.
• The ending news report says the Blind Man survived; Money and Alex are being blamed for the home invasion... But what about Cindy's corpse? They'll likely assume Money killed her; but aren't the cops curious about the obvious restraint marks matching those of the basement dungeon? She clearly wasn't one of the home invaders.
  • An elderly war hero, whose daughter was tragically and newsworthily killed only a while before, fought off two young punk home invaders, and can point directly to looted areas of the upstairs. That chamber's likely to be waved off as an old man's weird sex dungeon, not something anyone wants to spend a lot of time on - much less start pulling up random floor panels in.
  • The police likely never found her body anyway. Remember that Blind Man buried her in the basement and closed the hole up with floorboards.
  • Two people died in the house. And by the way, the woman responsible for the man's daughter's death happens to be missing. There is no world where they wouldn't look in the basement (if only to make sure the robbers aren't there) and from there, there is no world where they wouldn't at least look into the obvious cell down there.
  • It is, in fact, in this very world, and in particular in lower-class American neighborhoods, that police often do very lazy and cursory investigations — yes, even in cases involving death. The police found two home intruders dead. They probably did a sweep of the house looking for any others. They found some weird stuff in the basement, but nothing to indicate there was another person involved. They almost certainly did not run DNA samples from random locations around the house (those are expensive) nor look for hidden floor panels to pull off (why even think of that?). They likely took the old man (a hero war vet, remember) at his word, wrote up the paperwork as quickly as they could, told him to call them if he had any further problems, and called it a day. Any further investigation would probably focus on Alex's dad's business.
• The bell that's connected to Cindy only seems to ring once, when Alex and Rocky discover her and she jerks forward. Why doesn't it ring at any other point during the home invasion (gunshots, yelling, etc.?). It must be at least more excitement than she's used to that would provoke her into at least moving around.
  • Given her mental state, she was probably cowering in the back of her pen in fear. Only when she sees potential rescuers does she leap forward to plead with them.
• So, people are saying that the ending implies that Rocky will never escape The Blind Man and that he'll be trying to get her. While I do understand Rocky not being able to rest because he's still out there, and The Blind Man wanting revenge, how is an old blind guy supposed to be able to track someone that he obviously never saw and never heard her full name?
  • Rocky might be listed as a known associate if Money or Alex have any kind of criminal record. Also, she and Money were in a relationship, so it's possible the Blind Man could find out about her through social media or by asking around.
  • Also, the Blind Man was somehow able to track down and kidnap Cindy without anybody noticing. He already has to be pretty damn resourceful to pull off something like that while blind. It's also highly possible that he has known associates who can do the dirty work for them. As an Army veteran, he has the potential to have some very convenient contacts.
  • Rocky is safe. It's just supposed to be chilling and a bit ironic that both Rocky and the Blind Man survived, but neither can ever tell a soul what really happened without exposing their own crimes.
    • She most likely is not safe. They did cut a scene that implied that the Blind Man was going to follow her to California, but there's also a sequel in the planning, so Rocky might very well get what's coming to her.
    • If the Blind Man ever did hunt Rocky down, it's never implied in the sequel. He's still living in the same house in Detroit.
• Okay so why exactly doesn't the Blind Man report the money missing? What does he have to lose?
  • His freedom. Money brings question, and probably he wants to avoid an investigation. Particularly if he actually wants to find Rocky and get her.
  • Because if Rocky gets arrested, there's nothing to stop her from telling the police about how he kidnapped Cindy and forcibly impregnated her. If she tells the cops to rip up the basement floorboards, they'll find her body and confirm the story. Rocky would still get in trouble for taking the money, but the Blind Man would likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. Also, the Blind Man might still be planning to go after Rocky and get a child from her. He can't do that if she's in jail.
• Why didn't the chloroform work on the old man?
  • He didn't breathe?
  • It didn't have enough time. Money just assumes that it's worked when he walks downstairs and makes enough noise to rouse the Blind Men out of his bedroom.
• How did Cindy get a nicely-cut newspaper clipping? The old man's blind, he doesn't read newspapers. And Cindy wouldn't have gotten her hands on a pair of scissors.
  • The blind man probably didn't kidnap Cindy himself because (surprise surprise) he is blind. Who knows if someone was working for him who isn't shown in the movie. Someone who could've cut out the newspaper clipping.
    • The movie starts with the blind man dragging Cindy to his house.
    • No, that was a flashforward of Rocky being dragged back to the Blind Man's house.
  • The Blind Man probably had someone clip out the article for him. It would be an innocuous request he could ask any stranger. Given how fixated he is on justifying his actions toward her, he probably had it clipped out specifically so he could give it to her to remind her why she's there.
• The bedroom upstairs: First they said they're trapped because the windows have been barred, immediately after Alex falls out the window.
  • The impression I got was that he's pushed out so hard that the bar cage falls off. I believe the cage is visible falling away as he's ejected. The bars are nailed into a crappy old wooden house, after all, not a concrete prison. Alex and Rocky never actually test the window bars and just assume that they're sturdy enough to resist any attempt to escape.
• How did the police not notice all the crazy stuff in the basement? Especially the semen turkey baster...
  • Because they didn't go into the basement. The man was the victim so getting rid of the dead thieves (which were killed in so-called self defense) was probably the only thing they had to do. If they **did** find all the crazy stuff in the basement they might just think it's some sort of sex dungeon.
  • We're just supposed to assume that the police believed the Blind Man's story enough that they didn't investigate enough to start poking holes in it.
• How come the police weren't looking for Cindy? She's a rich white girl who's been kidnapped, that's the kind of thing that makes primetime news. And he's got motive — in fact, he's probably a prime suspect.
  • They probably were looking for her, and the Blind Man might even have been questioned, but the police probably assumed that an old blind man wouldn't be able to perform a kidnapping/murder.
  • Alternatively, for all we know she's only been down there a day or so, it's possible she hasn't been reported missing yet.
• How is it that The Blind Man was able to smell Rocky, Money, and Alex's shoes, but not smell Alex himself when he was mere inches away from him?
  • Either Alex's feet aren't as stinky as his shoes or it's one of the other two burglars' shoes that the Blind Man was smelling. Or maybe the combined stench of all three pairs.
  • Alex's shoes weren't left behind for The Blind Man to smell anyway, he put them back on during his first escape.
• Instead of trying to pry open the door to the basement, why didn't Money try to pry off the mount for the deadbolt off the doorframe, or go to The Blind Man's tool room and get a screwdriver?
  • The burglars rely on Alex's stolen keys and security codes to get into homes. Getting through locked doors by other means is not their specialty.
• Since when do home security companies keep keys to their clients' houses, and shouldn't the fact that all these robbed houses had alarm systems from the same company that keeps keys to these houses have led the police to suspect that someone in the company was responsible?
  • I have no answer for why a security company keeps all of its clients' keys in the owner's home desk. As for the robbed houses all having the same security company, given that they live in Detroit, there are probably dozens of home burglaries each day, so one crew targeting that company's clients might get lost in the data. Since the protagonists are hardly rolling in cash and still see fit to remind each other of the rules, they have probably only done it a few times so far. The burglars also throw a rock through the window of the house as they leave, so it looks like it was a simple smash-and-grab. Investigators will assume that the security system did its job by going off and only giving the thieves a few moments to grab stuff before fleeing from the police response, so if anything, the customers will be left happy they had a burglar alarm.
• What the Hell was the point of the turkey baster? At the risk of stating the obvious, inseminating a women against her will is still rape (both morally and legally) regardless of whether or not you brought your sausage to the party. On the off chance the cops actually caught him, it's not like he'd get a lighter sentence just because he didn't stick his dick in her.
  • He's crazy. It only has to make sense to him.
  • It's possible that he has sexual performance problems with women, but not during private masturbation, so this is really the only way he can achieve his aims. Alternatively, some people find the actual mechanics of achieving penetration to be difficult enough even with the power of sight. After all, it's not like our eyes are right next to our genitals. That would be even more difficult for him. It's probably easier for him to restrain a struggling victim with more of his arms free and use the turkey baster rather than have to mount her blind and commit the act that way.
  • It's a salve for his conscience - it, combined with the thought that Cindy and Rocky deserved it is enough for him to feel like he's still a good person, and not a rapist. That Cindy, Rocky, and the law disagree with him on that doesn't matter to him.
  • His feelings towards his dead daughter's mother may also be in play. Presumably she's deceased, but he may still consider it "cheating" on her memory to have sex with another woman, regardless of circumstances. After all, he doesn't seem to have made any attempt to find a woman who would legitimately bear him another child, whether as a wife or a surrogate.
  • There are anecdotal reports of otherwise asexual people "cranking one out" on occasion; the mechanics can be detached from feelings. Additionally, he might fear his genitals being damaged in the process, and it's hypothetically easier to insert one's penis into a device (condom -> funnel -> beaker?) than a squirming victim.
• Why would the Blind Man activate his security system in the first place? We can assume that he had it installed before his mental collapse, but once he kidnaps someone, the last thing he wants is police rummaging around his house investigating a break-in.
  • It's probably so he can have a nice visible "This property protected by X" sticker on his doors, to discourage any burglars from trying to break in there in the first place. Most burglary teams would've taken that into consideration and gone to another address; it's just bad luck on everyone's part that these particular burglars have an inside access to that security company's keys.
• What the hell was that dark liquid Cindy's body was covered in?
  • Something that can dissolve a human body. As for exactly what, got me.
  • If I were to venture a guess, I'd say it's tar or liquid rubber. Either would make it fairly difficult to find and recover her body once it filled the space it was in. It wasn't so much meant to dissolve her body as bury it in that space under the basement floor.
  • Something to seal it up in an airtight shell so the corpse won't stink up the house when it decomposes under the basement floor, probably. Giveaway for the cops aside, the guy uses his sense of smell to find his way around a lot.
  • It's heating oil. When it comes to older houses like the one the Blind Man lives in, they use heating oil to warm up the house during the winter months. There's even been reports of dead bodies being found in heating oil tanks in several houses in real life when people were trying to hide dead bodies.
• Blind Guy is the only person still living in that crappy neighborhood, so how has imminent domain not been invoked at some earlier date and the whole place bulldozed to put up a Wal-mart Supercenter or a something?
  • Because it's Detroit.
  • It does seem strange, unless you're from here.
• How does the Old Man get off scot-free? The whole ending segment doesn't make sense. Any forensics or detectives would immediately see through the lies with more than a cursory glance. One of the burglars has been dead for several hours at this point, and is currently tied up in another room, stuffed in a corner. None of the burglars would appear armed since the gun they brought is in the basement. Bullet holes are all over the house. One the ceiling ducts would have been pulled out like he yanked someone out of there.
  • This is already discussed above, but we're just supposed to assume that the police bought the Blind Man's story and didn't look very closely for evidence that contradicted it. If you want justifications, you could look to the fact that it's in crime-ridden Detroit, where the cops are presumably overworked. The Blind Man is a blind war vet, so the cops are inclined to believe him and view him as a "good guy." The victims are young punks, so the cops are inclined to believe that they're the "bad guys" who got what they deserved when they broke into the wrong house.
• When the Old Blind Man cut off the power, turning the whole house pitch black, why didn't Rocky's and Alex's eyes eventually adjust to the darkness?
  • Human eyes need some light to see. There is only so far that they can adjust. There is no way to see in true darkness.