In 1933, Oklahoma, a mother was desperate to protect her two daughters from dust, disease, and death. Obsession turns into paranoia, giving birth to a psychological horror that will keep you glued to the screen. Directed by Karrie Crouse and William Joines and starring the brilliant Sarah Paulson, Hold Your Breath is a thrilling, nerve-wracking horror film that you must add to your watchlist if out-of-the-box horror interests you.
Margaret found comfort in dreaming about the chest-high weeds that once surrounded her house. But often the joyful memories were followed by the fear of losing her two daughters a sandstorm. The crops had died, and the land was barren. Her husband, Henry, got a job and traveled to Philadelphia to build a bridge. He had offered for Margaret to travel with him and look after their children, but she had refused. After losing her daughter, Ada, to scarlet fever, Margaret did not intend to abandon her daughter’s grave and travel far away. She believed it was her duty to hold on to the house they had built and keep her daughters together with her. The horror stems from an environmental disaster (set in the 1930s Dust Bowl), and the fear of it taking away all that was left impacted the characters, particularly Margaret psychologically. Did the family survive the Dust Bowl? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Who was Wallace Grady?
Rose, Margaret’s elder daughter, often read the story of The Grey Man to her little sister, Ollie. According to the story, The Grey Man was made of ashes, and he could enter one’s house through tiny cracks, and if someone mistakenly breathed him in, The Grey Man would make them do terrible things. The story affected Ollie greatly, and she always searched for the mysterious man around her. One day, during a sandstorm, she thought she saw a man standing outside their door. Margaret searched for him, but she could not find anyone. She had assumed Ollie imagined it, and she reminded them that The Grey Man was a character in a fictitious story, and they must not take it seriously. With people around her falling sick and dying, Margaret made it her life’s mission to do anything she had to to ensure that her girls were safe. She covered every crack in her house to stop the dust from entering. She regularly swept the floor, cleaned their clothes, and made her girls wear masks to stop the dust from entering their bodies. She had become obsessed with keeping the dust away, and unlike the rest of the churchgoing population, she had started to lose faith in divine miracles. Instead of waiting for the rain, she wanted to equip herself for the worst possible disaster.
One day Ollie complained that The Grey Man had hurt their cow in the barn. Margaret was surprised that Ollie continued to obsess over the character. She did not pay any heed to it, but all of a sudden, when she almost caught a glimpse of a man in her barn, she realized Ollie had been right all along. At the church, Margaret had heard about a recent incident where a drifter killed a woman and her children, and she could not shrug off the possibility that the man hiding in her barn was the murderous drifter. Upon pointing her shotgun in his direction, the man finally showed himself. He claimed to know Henry, and he explained Margaret’s husband had gifted him his jacket and had requested him to check on his wife and children. He introduced himself as Wallace Grady, a pastor who was spreading the word of God. Apparently he did not wish to create a wrong impression by knocking on Margaret’s door with his injured leg. He explained that he would have introduced himself soon after his leg was healed. Margaret refused to believe the stranger, but she changed her mind when he healed Rose’s bleeding nose. She had developed a condition due to the dusty environment, and Margaret did not expect that the preacher’s touch would magically heal her child. He also promised to get their cow to produce more milk since it was the only source of food they had left, and Margaret could not refuse the help.
Soon after the stranger entered their lives, a brief spell of rain followed. Wallace helped restore Margaret’s faith, and she allowed him to stay at the barn. But everything changed when Margaret received a letter from Henry stating that a man named Wallace had stolen his jacket, letter, money, and the sweets he had bought for the girls. According to Henry, Wallace was a con man who had brutally killed his bunkmate to steal his boots. Margaret clutched her shotgun and pointed it at Wallace.
How did Margaret try to protect her family?
When Margaret started reading Henry’s letter, Wallace guessed that she would find out his true identity, and so he grabbed hold of Ollie to defend himself. Margaret communicated with Ollie through sign language, and fired a shot in Wallace’s direction. While Ollie managed to run to her mother, Wallace grabbed hold of the letter. He reminded Margaret that he was an angel who had come into their lives and healed Rose, and instead of mistreating him, she must be thankful. Wallace threatened to put Rose back the way she was, but Margaret was not afraid. She knew he was a conman who had his ways to convince people that he was a preacher. Maybe he simply knew a technique to heal Rose’s nosebleeds, and the spell of rain was God’s work and not his. Sometimes he got lucky, and sometimes he didn’t.
Margaret was caught off-guard when Wallace mentioned The Grey Man and how, just like the man made of ashes, he too was impossible to stop. Margaret did not realize that Wallace had borrowed the book from Rose once. She was convinced that Wallace was The Grey Man and he could destroy her family if she rested even for a second. Wallace knew that Margaret was paranoid, and by instilling the fear that he would return, he kept Margaret on her toes even after he left. She’d stopped taking her sleeping pills that were prescribed to her after Ada’s death. She used to sleepwalk, and the medicine helped her get a goodnight’s sleep. Margaret could not afford to sleep anymore. She was always on the watch for Wallace. She stood outside her house at night with her shotgun in hand to kill anyone who threatened to cause harm to her children. Strange things started to happen around the house—doors got locked and unlocked on their own, and one night Rose and Ollie’s bed caught fire. Margaret was convinced that Wallace had entered their house through a crack in their door, just like The Grey Man. Rose tried to reason with her mother, stating that there was no connection between Wallace and the ghost from the storybook, but it was already too late.
Margaret had not slept for days; she had stopped thinking logically and was driven by emotions. When her sister-in-law, Esther, visited her, she encouraged Margaret to attend the community dance program since everyone was worried about her. Esther had suffered physically and mentally due to the environmental catastrophe, but apparently a healer had helped her recover, and she was doing well. Margaret was afraid that, just like Esther’s son was taken away by social services when her condition deteriorated, her daughters too would be taken away if she was deemed unfit to look after them. So she got her daughters dressed in pretty clothes. All of a sudden, when Margaret heard Rose scream, she assumed she was haunted by the ghost, and she tore her dress to help her breathe. But as it turned out, Rose was simply laughing aloud, but Margaret had lost her ability to assess any situation. Her mental health had deteriorated, and she was constantly in fear of the unknown.
Who was haunting Margaret and her family?
To prove to her community that she and her girls were doing okay, Margaret, Rose, and Ollie went to the dance. When she saw Rose talking to the Sheriff, she assumed that her daughter was complaining about her condition. She spoke to the sheriff to find out if she was in any danger, and while Rose had not complained about her, Margaret’s shaky demeanor and her bleeding leg gave her away. To color her cheeks red, she had cut her leg and used the blood, not realizing that the cut was deep and she was still bleeding. She tried to lie her way out of the mess, but it was not easy. Everywhere she looked, she imagined Wallace standing. When Esther entered the church with the pastor, Margaret for a brief minute thought she was with Wallace. She was convinced that the healer Esther had mentioned was the con-man she met, and she tried to warn everyone about him. Rose supported her mother to convince the room that Margaret was not lying. But soon Margaret started to compare Wallace with The Grey Man, and everything she said stopped making sense. She spoke of him as a supernatural being capable of entering houses through cracks, and Rose immediately knew that no one would believe them anymore.
After returning home, Rose realized that her mother was not doing well. Margaret had sewed her hand without realizing it, and Rose helped her wipe the blood up. A loud pounding on the door left Margaret thinking that Wallace had returned. While she headed out with her shotgun, she asked Rose to put her mask on and stay inside. That night, Rose realized that it was not Wallace who was haunting them but her own mother. Margaret was not in her senses; she saw her mother scratch the wall in her room, asking Ada to let her in. Margaret had never got over the trauma of losing her child, and her dream was to reunite with Ada one day. Rose watched her mother walk from one room to another, and she ultimately stepped out of their house again. Margaret had her gun pointed at Rose; she imagined Rose as Wallace, and it was only after Rose repeatedly begged her to snap out of her imagination that she finally decided not to pull the trigger.
Rose confronted her mother, stating that she was the one haunting them and not Wallace. She had been sleepwalking and was responsible for locking and unlocking doors and setting fire to their bed. Margaret refused to listen to Rose; she was convinced that everything she had done so far had been to protect her children. She wanted to keep her three daughters safe, and she was furious when Rose reminded her that Ada had passed away. She never could accept her child’s death, and in her mind, as long as she stayed at her house, Ada would continue to be with her. All she had to do was keep the dust from entering her house. The dust had turned into a demonic being in her head, and it took the shape of Wallace. She was scared that just like scarlet fever had taken away Ada, the dust and disease it brought along would kill Ollie and Rose.
How did Rose step up to protect her baby sister?
Rose realized that her mother had no intention of ever traveling to Philadelphia to be with their father. Even if the storms got worse and they were on the verge of death, Margaret would force them to stay and die in the house because it would allow her to be with her three daughters forever. Rose tried to run away with Ollie, but the dust storm made it impossible. She was terrified when she saw Esther’s dead body lying outside their house. She had been brutally killed, and Rose’s best guess was that her mother was responsible. Margaret had assumed that Esther was working for Wallace and wanted to cause her harm, and it was likely that she killed Esther in her sleep.
The sheriff dropped by Margaret’s house to check if everything was alright. Esther had gone missing, and after seeing Margaret’s condition at the dance, the sheriff had reason to believe that she knew something about Esther. Rose begged him to help them, and she confirmed that her mother was unfit to care for them. The sheriff decided to take the girls with him, but before he could do so, Margaret repeatedly stabbed him. He bled to death, and the girls were once again stuck with Margaret. Rose had grabbed hold of the knife Margaret had used to stab the sheriff. She thought of slitting her mother’s throat with it, but when she noticed Ollie watching, she decided against it. Margaret realized there was no way that she could get away with two murders. No one would understand her, and she would be hanged to death. She could not imagine leaving her girls, and so she decided that the three of them would overdose on her sleeping pills and die together to reunite with Ada. Rose tried to delay the process by asking her mother to mix the pills with peaches. Margaret was glad that Rose was no longer resisting her, and she happily obliged to her request. When Margaret stepped in the kitchen, Rose came running to her, saying that Ollie had run away. Frantic, Margaret stepped out into the storm in search of her daughter, and she tied a rope around her waist that she had attached to their door knob so that she could find her way back.
Hold Your Breath’s ending revealed that Rose had lied to her mother; Ollie was not lost. She knew that only the storm could overpower Margaret, and so she’d forced her to step outside. Rose cut the rope, and Margaret did not know which way to go. The cutting of the rope can be interpreted to be symbolic of the tearing of the umbilical cord when a child is born, but this time it was reversed. The daughter wanted to free herself from her mother, and she tore the rope (the umbilical cord) to detach herself from Margaret. Margaret was lost and had breathed in a lot of dust. She collapsed to the ground and eventually died. In her final dream, Margaret saw herself walking through the green field that once surrounded their house. She was playing hide and seek with her children, and seeing all three of them together made her emotional.
What does the final scene suggest?
In Hold Your Breath’s ending, Rose and Ollie had boarded a train to be reunited with their father. The green landscape made Ollie happy, and Rose felt a sense of relief. They had managed to run away from the dust, but every time she would find a speck of dust she would be reminded of her home and the tragedy that followed. She will perhaps blame herself all her life for her mother’s death. Dust was everywhere; there was no escaping for Rose, and we can only hope that life will help her overcome her past and not meet the same fate as her mother. To think of it, the other murder case that was mentioned in the film also had a deranged husband killing his family. There was something in the dust—a sense of madness mixed with the fear of dying helpless—that overwhelmed many. Most lost hope, some found respite in the church, while others gave in to the paranoia.
