Sound is one of the most essential elements in a horror movie: it sets the intended tone with underlying uncertainty that creates suspense. Its absence creates a unique eeriness, typically used before a scene shift or jump scare. The built-up suspense through the underlying sound in most horror movies is so subtle that when it’s removed, it suddenly becomes even more noticeable.
It sets the audience on edge because the unknown lies within that silence, ready to harm, maim, or even kill the wandering character. The combined use of sound and silence is interwoven into the engaging storytelling through film.
Hush is an underrated psychological thriller that centrally features a deaf character. We are shown Maddie’s experience with lengths of silence. In select scenes, such as while she’s cooking or when her fire alarm goes off, we see that she can’t hear it, but it’s so loud she can feel the vibrations and see its flashing light.
There is also the devastating moment where her good friend is being brutally murdered against her sliding glass door, and because she is unable to hear, she can’t help her friend in imminent danger. The absolute silence with this visual stimulation, such as with the surprise murder, spikes both the audience’s terror and empathy.
In comparison to more mainstream movies that showcase deafness, such as
A Quiet Place, which features a deaf child within a large family,
Hush is focused on a deaf main character. Both movies show deafness becoming a superpower and how these characters prevail within their undesirable situations.
She mentally runs through rational scenarios: run, hide, wait it out. What is immensely interesting within this movie is that her inner dialogue is the only place where she can hear. Even inside her own mind, she does not even have her own voice. It is instead her mother’s voice she could hear before she got meningitis and lost her hearing.
In this terrible circumstance, she has to use improvised plans and resources. She heavily relies on her other senses, such as touch and sight, during her house invasion. Survival instincts kick in, and an essential part of self-preservation is the ability to hear your attacker. Maddie does not have this advantage. An example would be when she hides underneath her porch, she uses her hand to sense the vibration of the killer walking on the planks above her. These survival skills showcase a way to think uniquely in order to stay alive.
Deafness can be a severe vulnerability in movie premises such as these (please never live alone in the woods), but it is also a strength when it comes to fighting off her attacker when it becomes her only option for survival. The most dangerous game is created: a man-on-man fight to remain alive. After she has been slowly mentally and physically tortured by the serial killer, she realizes, after many escape attempts, that there will be no way out. At least no way out that he would expect from her, as a deaf individual, and sadly, as a woman.
To him, she poses no threat and has been seemingly targeted to be his next victim. Her rationality wins out with a twisted mentality in a last stand: she must kill him to stay alive. Later in the movie, she uses sound as a weapon, and her inability to hear the incredibly loud alarm created an opportunity for her to save herself from a horrible scenario. Her deafness is not a character flaw; it is instead a character motivator. Her vulnerability became her strength.
In this, she is so much more than her disability: she is a writer, a sister, a daughter, a friend. A survivor. Maddie used to live in a world that felt “too loud” for her: too much vibration and movement. Living in the woods finally allowed her the room to think and expand herself in creative ways. The film gives agency to the deaf community with an ending not expected. Stereotyped horror roles only seem to end in tragedy and death. This movie is unique in its take on how deafness works when it comes to the innerworkings of life and death, and how a community is shaped around language and interpersonality.
She is more than what the box the world wanted to fit her into. She has agency and autonomy in making her own decisions, and ultimately, leading to taking back her will to life in a last stand effort when the odds are stacked high against her. She saves herself in this way. She became strategically empowered despite her deafness presenting her with a disadvantage.
Hush is a wonderfully crafted movie that displays deafness so interestingly, in this “kill or be killed” situation. It would be so terrifying to experience as a woman, but it’s ramped up even further by the fact that she cannot hear him. When her life is in danger, she hones the skills she’s learned through her life and takes back what would have been otherwise stolen from her. She is a powerful deaf character who deserves to be celebrated and remembered in modern disability media.
