A young married couple buy a beautiful house on several acres of land only to find out that the man they bought it from refuses to let go of the property.
Thrillers may be the most interesting genre in film history. The movies have had me on the edge of my seat for the short twenty years I have lived on this earth. Home invasion thrillers on the other hand, not so much. They’ve been stale and have failed to reinvent the genre in some time. With seeing the trailer for “The Intruder,” I knew exactly what type of movie I was in for. So I’ll just get to it, THIS MOVIE IS NOT GOOD.
Michael Ealy and Meagan Good play married couple Scott and Annie Russell, respectively, who buy a house from Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid) who is obsessed with the land. After the sale goes through, Charlie still finds his way onto the Russell’s property. The couple begins to fear for the safety when the longer they stay there, the more weird and frightening occurrences pop up. The trio is just horrendous and I, unfortunately, have to say it. In their defense, I can chalk their performances to the script or direction (we’ll get into that later). The three characters have no overall arc and absolutely no nuance to them. Meagan Good’s character is overly naïve and makes idiotic decisions that are simply only present in the film to keep the narrative going. Dennis Quaid’s character’s motivation is lazy and left me and the rest of the theater rolling our eyes. Towards the beginning, “The Intruder” could have passed for a home invasion B-movie but as it kept on, it only got worse. You can see where the story is going from a mile away and the film doesn’t try to mask it. There is an attempt of implementing a sub-plot of previous infidelity that is plaguing the couple but it holds no weight to the development of their relationship. The script is just a flat out disgrace. The dialogue is so pitiful it almost had me burst out with laughter and not for the right reasons. The less I say about the screenplay, the better.
“The Intruder” was not director Deon Taylor’s first rodeo but from this film, I could not tell. He fails to get great performances from his actors and the execution of the whole film is amateurish. Many moments that are supposed to be horrific but wind up being awkward and laughable instead. The surrounding technical elements are not any better. For one, the score is random and interchanges between a very upbeat to nerve-racking, sometimes in the same scene. The soundtrack added throughout makes the film comes off as glorified music video at times. The editing may be some of the worst I have seen. There are many instances where there are continuity issues and choppy cuts that had me confused. The cinematography has awkward moments with random moments of close-ups and the rest of the time the shots are as bland as washed out mayonnaise. Like I said about the script, the less I speak about the technical elements, the better. So yes, this movie is not good. I am trying to scrape for any positives but I really can’t. Terrible acting, score, direction, cinematography, and editing. I want to say you could rent this on Digital or DVD but it’s honestly not worthy.
In theaters Friday, May 3rd
