Home-invasion thriller ‘Don’t Breathe’ is a shockingly good time

You can say that again.

In “Don’t Breathe,” Money, his girlfriend Rocky (Jane Levy) and their friend Alex (Dylan Minnette), who’s not-so secretly in love with Rocky, have been pulling off a string of small-time burglaries using the keys and alarm codes from Alex’s dad’s security company.

Laptops, shoes, jewelry. Nothing too big that would land them in any real trouble.

But when Money hears a rumor of an old guy who’s hoarding at least $300,000 in cash in his creaky old house — the last occupied structure in an abandoned, blighted Detroit neighborhood — it’s too big of a score to pass up.

So what if the victim is a blind Gulf War hero and the money is the settlement for the wreck that killed his daughter?

Rocky needs the money to escape her abusive home life and run away with her little sister to California. Alex will do anything he can to help her. And Money, well, he just wants money.

But what should have been a simple job — knockout a Rottweiler and then his owner with some kind of homemade chloroform — goes wrong almost from the very start.

It’s almost comical just how wrong.

For starters, The Blind Man (“Avatar’s” Stephen Lang) isn’t incapacitated in any way and immediately starts hunting the intruders inside his heavily fortified, inescapable home. He’s part bloodhound, part Daredevil.

When The Blind Man — that’s really how he’s billed — learns the intruders have taken his money, he becomes enraged. When he discovers they’ve robbed him of something more personal, he goes in search of revenge.

The team behind the 2013 “Evil Dead” remake — director and co-writer Fede Alvarez, co-writer Rodo Sayagues and executive producer Sam Raimi, along with its star, Levy — have crafted a lean, mean, tightly coiled thriller with no clear hero. Nobody here is a good person.

Taking the whole “Hey you kids, get off my lawn” mantra to a whole new level, though, “Don’t Breathe” could find an untapped audience of seniors rooting for the old coot to give those young punks what’s coming to them.

Setting aside all the improbabilities and plot devices — cellphones die at the most inopportune time; The Blind Man just happens to be a client of Alex’s dad’s security company; etc. — other than the airport scene in “Captain America: Civil War,” it just may be the most fun I’ve had at the movies this summer.

With its “Home Alone”-style house of horrors, “Don’t Breathe” almost never goes where you’d expect. And it’s exhilarating in the way it manages to keep topping itself with new levels of twistedness.

Granted, for the most part, I was laughing at the insanity of it all more than jumping or shrieking. So if you’re looking for straight-up blood, guts and gore horror, you’ll probably be disappointed.

But if you’re just in the mood for a shockingly good time, don’t miss “Don’t Breathe.”

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch