Hold Your Breath, one of the latest releases for Hulu's 2024 Huluween lineup, is howling up a storm with an exquisite performance by Sarah Paulson. After being idle from the genre for three years, Paulson makes her much-needed return, softening the darkness of the material while keeping it suspenseful. Other than that, Hold Your Breath offers very little in terms of a solid narrative, with the exception of creating a harrowing landscape of Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl.
The movie takes place in 1933 at the peak of the Dust Bowl when storms swept devastation across the land, erasing the once green and lush vegetation and consuming the living in a tragic matter. Hold Your Breath additionally illustrates the spiral of mental illness and isolation, especially after the loss of children. That itself is the horror's heart, as it's every parent's worst nightmare.
Then, there is the shadowing influence of The Grey Man, a sinister figure who allows you to do incomprehensible actions when you inhale him. It sounds atrocious, but he is the central focal point in the movie as he haunts the minds of everyone who hears about him.
Hold Your Breath is rated R, under the MPAA guidelines and we're going to share why that is and whether if it'll be a good choice for kids to watch.
Hold Your Breath parents guide: Explaining the R rating
Despite being a horror movie, Hold Your Breath does not contain profanity or sexual situations, as many in the genre do. A lot of the fear is implanted that the Dust Bowl was a tragic period in American history, as many have died from its effects had they stayed in its path.
Sex & Nudity: None
Violence: This is where the R rating comes in. For starters, there's the deceased body of a young child who was a victim of a severe dust storm. While there are no physical altercations, the sight is traumatic for viewers. Then, there's a murdered female with her wound visible and bloody. Paulson's character is visibly shown strangling her two daughters while under the influence of The Grey Man and sleepwalking, and she's also shown with a shotgun in several scenes. When a storm kills her, her lifeless body is revealed.
I literally tightened when I saw the deceased child, so that's something to look out for if you're extremely sensitive like I am in that situation.
Language: For an R-rated film, there's no profanity, not even general words like you'd hear, even in a PG-rated one.
Drinking & Drugs: None for the most part, but there is a sleeping pill dependency to abhor sleepwalking.
Overall verdict: What age is Hold Your Breath appropriate for?
Hold Your Breath does have an R rating, but it is recommended that children under fifteen watch it with parental permission and it's a film that is likely not suitable for younger viewers. I know the historian in me would love to learn more about the Dust Bowl, so if I can feel that, there's a good chance that others will, too.