Like a really bad cough.

Here, we have a horror film set in Oklahoma, 1933, during the Dust Bowl. It was a hard time where coughing was non-stop and people were dying, and there were those lucky enough to survive it. So, why not use a sinister force to come in the house as dust and have you breathe it in? That’s the premise for Hulu’s new horror film “Hold Your Breath,” and I know it sounds obvious, but don’t hold your breath. It doesn’t live up to its concept the way it should have.

You have a fine performance from the leading lady Sarah Paulson, who delivers with the right emotions, and you have the ambiance with the photography done by Zoe White (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Will & Harper”). But you all you get are the obligatory scares and noisy supporting characters. In fact, the premise, which I’ll clarify within the next few paragraphs, basically becomes repetitive and annoying.

We meet a family, whose patriarch Henry is away building a bridge, while his wife Margaret (Paulson) and daughters are dealing with the storm, which also caused the death of their youngest child Ada. And she also shares the same kind of pathos with another mother named Esther (Annaleigh Ashford), who also lost a child to the storm. She was even willing to leave her environment, and so does Margaret’s family, but at what cost?

The older sister Rose (Amiah Miller) reads to her younger deaf sister Ollie (deaf actress Alona Jane Robbins) the story of the Grey Man, who can possess people who suck in his dust. “The Grey Man seeps through the cracks. You breathe him in, he’ll make you do terrible things,” she says. And Margaret hears stories about a murderous drifter, whose whereabouts remain unknown, as if he disappeared in the wind. And lately, Ollie and Rose have been seeing someone outside their farm.

The mother soon believes them, when that person named Brother Wallace Grady (Ebon Moss-Bachrach from Hulu’s “The Bear”) is discovered in their barn. Just as she threatens to shoot him, he manages to cure Rose of her illness and help solve some of their farm’s turmoil. But of course, the man is not really who he says he is. You bet he isn’t.

I think we can agree that the reason why Rose believes her daughters are in danger is because she breathed in the Grey Man. Which is why her daughters are scared of her, and why the movie has to resort to jumpscares and loud screams.

I just watched Max’s latest horror film “Salem’s Lot,” which is taken from Stephen King’s novel and has a campy approach that made it a fun movie. In fact, it ends up being more interesting than the cliches presented in “Hold Your Breath.” Even in the 1930s, the rules of a modern horror movie still exist, and unless they’re handled with originality, they just get boring.

Paulson is the one who tries to carry the film when she shifts through emotions regarding pathos and terror. And the ambiance of the dust storms is haunting. But these elements aren’t enough to save the film. Not even the child actresses are as entertaining as the ones I’ve currently seen in “Speak No Evil” or “Salem’s Lot.” And the deaf child actress has the potential to live up to Millicent Simmonds’ standards, but needs some more work. Who knows? If this movie took its time for a better character development, it could remind us of “A Quiet Place” but with demons coming in the forms of dust, instead of aliens with sensitive hearing.

For now, “Hold Your Breath” is better at coughing than it is at developing a fresh story.

Streaming on Hulu