Intruder (2016)

One type of horror that strikes fear into the hearts of audiences all around the world is home invasion horror.  People don’t want to find strangers in their homes.  That’s one of the worst experiences ever.  It’s happened to me before.  At university, I was in my room and I heard someone walk into the apartment I lived in.  I walked out to find a random guy in the living area.  He left when I asked who he was, and from then on, I kept the front door locked.

Movies are made all the time that convey this feeling of people trespassing in your living quarters.  It’s a relatable feeling, which is why there are so many successful instances of home invasion stories.  The Strangers, Funny People, and Home Alone all play on the idea of home invasion in ways that make them stand out from one another and all of the other movies of this kind.  But, as with any type of movie, there are bad films that counter out the good and leave people wondering why they were made at all.

One home invasion movie that deservedly went under the radar was Intruder, from 2016.  Elizabeth (Louise Linton) was a cellist who studied under Vincent (Moby).  While working out her relationship with her boyfriend Justin (Zach Myers), and meeting her neighbour John (John Robinson), someone mysteriously entered her apartment and began watching over her life without her knowledge.  All of this while she was taking care of a friend’s cat.

Some of the many home invasion tropes were at play throughout Intruder.  The difference was that it seemed more like a stalker story told through the filter of a home invasion.  The person who had entered the apartment wasn’t tormenting or trying to attack Elizabeth.  They were trying to insert themselves into Elizabeth’s life.  They were watching over her, pushing her life in certain directions.  That was something that was much more stalker than home invasion.

Home invasion movies tend to be about someone trying to violently enter a house to get to something or someone inside.  Many examples of this kind of storytelling exist.  Panic Room was a popular home invasion movie directed by David Fincher.  A group of thieves broke into a house, while the mom and daughter who lived there hid in their panic room.  There was a game of cat and mouse while the mom tried to get out for help, and the thieves tried to get into the panic room to get what they wanted.  There was a conflict between the two sides that pushed the movie forward from the initial home invasion to the defeat of the antagonists.

Or you could look at The Purge.  During an annual time when all forms of crime were legal, a rich family secured their house with an expensive system built to keep people out.  A man asked for help because people were trying to kill him, so the son of the house let the man in.  The attackers showed up and did whatever they could to get into the house in an attempt to kill the man that the son had saved.  The family had to protect themselves through any means necessary.

This kind of story wasn’t in Intruder.  There was the person who had entered the apartment.  They did use violence at a point.  They weren’t constantly trying to torment the person who lived in the house, though.  They weren’t torturing them or breaking in to try and get something from them.  They were a simple stalker who wanted to watch over the person who lived there.  That wasn’t the action/thriller type story that home invasion movies usually end up being.  It was a horror movie about a woman being stalked.

The main problem was that the movie ended up being about what the audience knew, which didn’t add much tension to the main character’s story.  She had no idea that there was someone in her apartment until the final moments of the movie.  Nothing tipped her off to the person being there.  The cat went missing at one point, and her boyfriend disappeared, but she never had any idea that things were wrong inside her own home.  The audience knew, which was a case of dramatic irony, but it would have been nice for Elizabeth to have some sense of things being wrong.  She simply wrote everything off with excuses instead of digging a little bit to try and figure out what happened.  She had no sense of the danger in her life.

As for the stalker, they didn’t really do too much throughout the movie.  They went into the apartment and simply watched Elizabeth as she went about her daily routine.  When she was talking to her boyfriend, the stalker was watching.  When she slept, the stalker appeared and watched her sleep.  The stalker did end up killing the boyfriend, but they never harmed Elizabeth and never did anything to tamper with her daily life.  Though an impending murder was implied through the film’s opening, where another woman was killed in her home by what looked to be the same stalker, the stalker never attempted to harm Elizabeth directly.

Intruder was not a home invasion movie, though it had a home invasion thread.  It didn’t have the cat-and-mouse taunting type of story that home invasion films have.  There weren’t the people living or staying in the house against the people trying to get in.  It was a movie about someone going into a home to watch over the person living there.  That’s much more of a stalker story than a home invasion storyline.  Only, it was a stalker story where the victim didn’t know she was being stalked.  It took away a lot of the tension that could have been there.

The story I have about the person that entered my apartment at university is more of a home invasion story than Intruder.  The person came in.  I knew they came in.  I confronted them, and they left.  That’s more of a conflict than Intruder, which never really had the victim confront the stalker that had intruded into her life.  That lack of conflict made it fall flat.  Intruder didn’t strike fear into the hearts of its audience the way it should have.

These notes will do a little better than the movie:

• Intruder was suggested by @MarceloJPico, who also suggested Chicks Dig Gay Guys (week 145), Die Another Day (week 153), Double Down (week 215), and The Parking Lot Movie (week 239).
• Have you seen Intruder?  Have you heard of it?  What are some home invasion or stalker movies that you like or dislike?  Share any thoughts you have in the comments below.
• You can find me on Twitter if there are any movies that you think should be covered for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Or you can put those suggestions in the comments.
• When I’m watching bad movies, I frequently share bits and pieces of them on Snapchat.  Add me (jurassicgriffin) if you want to see some of that, or other things I might share there.
• Let’s talk about next week for a second.  A while back, I saw a movie called Robo Vampire (week 171).  It was a mess, but I enjoyed it.  I decided that I would go back to that director at some point.  Next week is that week, as I check out The Blazing Ninja.  How was it?  You’ll find out in seven days.  See you then.