31 movies to watch in October: Hush

For day 19 of 31 movies to watch in October, I have chosen a creepy little Netflix Original horror flick that released on the streaming service in 2016. There is also a tie-in to one of the most successful horror series in Netflix history, The Haunting of Hill House.

While it’s not really a Halloween film, the stalker/killer in Hush does wear a mask, so that makes it appropriate for October, right? Unlike our other masked favorites (Michael Myers and Jason), we don’t even know this guy’s name or motive, which makes him super-creepy.

Maddie (Kate Siegel) is a deaf/mute writer who lives with her pet cat in a house in the woods. Her friend Sarah visits her one evening, and upon leaving is attacked and killed by a man wearing a creepy white mask.

After Maddie does not respond to Sarah frantically banging on her door, the man realizes that his new prey cannot hear him and begins a game of cat and mouse, sneaking into her house and taking pictures of her with her own phone, then sending them to her computer.

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While he initially thinks he has the advantage, Maddie turns out to be very resourceful, with a strong survival instinct. By the time the end credits roll, both Maddie and the man are injured and desperate.

Hush was written by Mike Flanagan and star Siegel (who is also his wife), and you probably know both of them from the hit Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House. He also wrote and directed Oculus, Absentia, Ouija: Origin of Evil and Gerald’s Game.

Hush is genuinely tense and captivating, with Kate Siegel giving an outstanding performance of Maddie. Flanagan made clever use of sound to enhance our understanding of Maddie’s deafness, including the use of “white noise.”

Maddie was also not the usual Final Girl. Instead, she was clever and used her wits to outsmart the killer, surprising him. Stephen King compared Hush with Halloween and Wait Until Dark (a great white-knuckle movie that featured a blind woman, played by Audrey Hepburn), and we can all trust Uncle Stevie, right?

Hush was very well-received when it began streaming on Netflix, with many publications including it on “Best Of” lists.  Hush can only be seen on Netflix.

Are you a fan of Mike Flanagan, and have you seen the Netflix Original movie Hush? Let us know what you think in the comments section.