Hush (Mike Flanagan, 2016)

A deaf and mute female writer who lives in a house in the woods is terrorised by a psychopath. The static set-up therefore excludes any greater twists beyond the to-ing and fro-ing of the power balance, with the duellists taking turns to take lumps out of each other, and the amount of violence is vicariously excessive as is now the genre norm, but at least making the victim unable to hear and therefore vulnerable in a different way than usual adds a dimension to the mechanics. The script exploits this to its full potential, and the result is undeniably tense, with the character's muteness also mercifully meaning there is less interminable screaming and more emphasis on visual pointers. That said, it's still just a slasher pic.

5/10