YMMV / Don't Breathe

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Was Money's story about the circumstances behind the death of the the Blind Man's daughter (the other driver being drunk and the Blind Man's money being a bribe from her family) an accurate version or exaggerated gossip? Granted, he did clearly get all of his money somewhere but it could also have been a life insurance payout or something. And if she really was from such a rich family it seems odd that Money hasn't heard anything about her disappearance, and that the police apparently never investigated the Blind Man due to his enmity with her.
• Base-Breaking Character: For quite a few fans, Money is the most annoying character due to his insufferable greed and his Too Dumb to Live status. He is the one who brought up the plan of invading the Blind Man's home in order to steal $300,000. More stupidly, he uses a gun to break the lock on the door protecting the safe, which wakes up the Blind Man and sets off all the following events of the movie. However, others liked him enough to at least feel some sympathy for him, especially since he didn't shoot the Blind Man when he had a chance and essentially sacrificed his own life to give Rocky and Alex a better chance at survival.
• Ending Fatigue: Rocky seemingly escapes danger only to be thrust back into it no less than three times during the finale.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Due to the Ending Fatigue and the death of Alex it's very tempting to prefer the film came to a stop about fifteen minutes or so before the actual ending.
• Jerkass Woobie: The girl trapped in the basement who did kill the Blind Man's daughter in a drunk driving accident and then bribed her way out of it (according to Money anyway), but even then there’s lack of concrete circumstances behind that. And her fate of being locked in the basement, raped and forcibly impregnated is one no one deserves.
• Memetic Mutation: It's quite popular to joke that this is Stick's solo movie, given "The Blind Man" and Stick are both blind old men who turn out to be killing machines and utterly without mercy to those in their way.
• Moral Event Horizon: Even after the Blind Man kills Money, many viewers might sympathize with him as a mentally ill blind man who is simply reacting to potential thugs in his home. That changes when it's revealed that he kidnapped and raped a young woman to produce another child. At that point, the Main Characters hold the higher moral ground, as they are merely burglars. This factor hindered the sequel for some, as some found the Blind Man too horrible to follow even as a morally grey protagonist.
• Narm:
  • The lights-out scene in the basement is one of the most intense sequences of the film, but it's dimmed somewhat by repeated cuts to Rocky's wide-eyed gaping as she tries to move around.
  • The Reveal is meant to be frightening and disturbing, but the Blind Man wielding a turkey baster full of his semen makes it hard to take seriously even for its subject matter - though the fact that the scene is still acted with the same intensity as the rest of the film, and the knowledge of what the Blind Man is going to do with said tool, pushes it straight back into Nightmare Fuel for many.
• Older Than They Think: This wasn't the first time that a turkey baster was used for impregnating.
  • Nor is it the first time that burglars seeking a rumored stash of wealth fall afoul of an insane homeowner-turned-kidnapper with a ferocious Rottweiler, whose maze-like house they're trapped inside.
• Retroactive Recognition: Alex is Clay Jensen, and Rocky is Zoey Clarke or Mia
• Rooting for the Empire: Some members of the audience were initially on the side of the Blind Man, considering the fact that he is a Villainous Underdog AND was portrayed by fan-favourite actor Stephen Lang. That being said, he was still a deranged, violent kidnapper who tried to forcibly impregnate young women to produce him a child.
• Squick:
  • We see a closeup of the Blind Man's semen sample...complete with a pube stuck in there. It gets worse when Rocky shoves the turkey baster of semen into the Blind Man's mouth.
  • In the beginning, we see Money actually urinate onto the floor of a house he just broke into. Yes, it's just as disgusting as it sounds.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: With the initial set-up of the conflict being a morally grey situation that raises interesting moral questions pertaining to home defense the twist that the Blind Man is himself an insane kidnapper changes the dynamic into him being a straightforward horror film villain instead of the victim of a crime who just might be going a bit too far. To some, that can be disappointing.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Some viewers might resist being expected to sympathize with home burglars, but the Blind Man is too crazy to sympathize with either and while she doesn't deserved to be raped it's hard to feel bad for the person he targeted because said person killed his daughter while drunk driving and used her family's money to get away with it, leaving them with no-one to care about.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Even after it becomes obvious how deranged the Blind Man is, Rocky repeatedly turns down Alex's offers to call the cops simply because she doesn't want to lose the cash she's stolen. This not only gets Alex killed and her almost killed, but also allows the Blind Man to survive the events of the film and possibly seek out more young women to replace his daughter. Also, there surely had to be better ways of getting herself and her sister out of their situation than resorting to house robbery.
  • Also it's just impossible to sympathize with a trio who start movie with such a Kick the Dog move as to decide to break into the home of a blind war veteran to steal the cash settlement he received when his daughter was killed in a car accident.

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