This is the point when Don’t Breathe turned off many audience members and critics. What started out as a seemingly by-the-numbers home invasion film, becomes incredibly seedy and perverse. It is revealed that Norman isn’t just protecting his cash stash, but he's kidnapped a woman and is keeping her in his basement. It gets even more disgusting as we learn why exactly Norman has been keeping her. The woman is responsible for killing his daughter, and according to Norman it’s only fair that since he lost a child he’d be given one back. Frozen semen and a turkey baster are involved.

This make-shift basement dungeon in Don’t Breathe looks similar to the one from Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, restraints and cords hold the victim, while bright fluorescent lights shine above. Don’t Breathe and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo share the kind of glossy repulsiveness that Fincher is known for.

On the DVD commentary track, Fincher admits Panic Room is a B-movie, one which he tries to and succeeds at elevating into a very effective, beautiful-to-look-at thriller. It seems like every other film on his resume fits this distinction. Imagine Se7en directed by someone other than Fincher. Would any other director, coming to his second feature, have filled the film with as much dread and refined camerawork as Fincher? It could have easily been nothing more than mid-90s schlock, but Fincher trained his camera on the blood-soaked crime scenes with a surprisingly refined restraint. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an extension of the malevolence in Se7en, both not shying away from the acts and the machinations of their respective serial killers.

Don’t Breathe’s Norman rationalizes his actions, describing how the death of his child proves there is no God and, because of that, he’s free to do what he wishes. While nowhere near as well-rounded as Se7en’s John Doe or even Dragon Tattoo’s Martin Vanger, Norman’s character is just as demented and frightening as those killers. Alvarez, like Fincher, is obsessed with the limits of what evil people do and what they hide. Fincher states in the Dragon Tattoo special features, “I think people are perverts…­that’s the foundation of my career.” He generalizes his audience and what they crave, while also revealing how he feels about his own characters. From Fight Club’s Tyler Durden to Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne, there are masks over these individuals hiding a dangerous level of chaos.