An unremarkable horror virtually identical to a substantially more successful hit gets lost in the streaming woods

Having carved out a niche for himself as one of cinema’s favorite grizzled badasses, Stephen Lang has been riding a wave of momentum that few actors get to experience so long into their careers, even if movies like Old Man indicate that typecasting is lurking just around the corner at all times.

The veteran character actor has played thinly-veiled spins on the same archetypal adversary in James Cameron’s Avatar franchise, the Conan the Barbarian remake, Braven, and Mortal Engines in the last decade and change alone, but last year’s backwoods psychological horror was always facing an uphill battle to step out of the shadow of Don’t Breathe.

In both genre films made on a shoestring budget, Lang plays an isolated elderly gentleman harboring a dark and vicious secret, who finds himself forced into action to defend his territory when youthful interlopers end up putting themselves directly into his path, which requires a great deal of ingenuity, inventiveness, and makeshift weaponry as a result.

Whereas Don’t Breathe netted almost $160 million at the box office and got a sequel, Old Man was left by the wayside after being released to almost no fanfare whatsoever. That being said, the combination of Lang doing what he does best coupled with the streaming sphere’s unquenchable desire to consume as much terrifying content as possible has conspired to launch the overlooked film back into the spotlight.

Per FlixPatrol, the leafy and lurid ode to the good (or bad) old days of exploitation cinema has carved out a spot on the iTunes global rankings, keeping the Lang renaissance in good health.