Intruders

Watching Intruders I was reminded of Troy Nixey’s disastrous Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark; i.e. a trailer that suggested chills galore, but an end result that delivered little and was mainly incomprehensible. Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo hasn’t helmed anything since 28 Weeks Later some 4 years ago, so maybe he was just in the mood for shaking off the cobwebs when he agreed to take this on. How else to explain why he’d sign up for a film with a bizarre a screenplay as this? In the film we follow two different children, one living in Madrid, the other London, who come night time are both terrorised by a faceless intruder. In Spain the mother turns to the church to gleam answers, whereas in the smoke the father (Clive Owen) takes a more standard approach: Calling the police, setting up CCTV and kicking the arse of the mysterious “monster” whenever he gets the chance. Fresnadillo isn’t a fool with the camera and there’s a few nice touches here, playing on people’s fears of the dark and a scene where Owen burns a scarecrow is easily the freakiest thing seen on celluloid involving a basketball and an old jacket. Sadly, it all falls apart though in quick and spectacular fashion once the twist is revealed. I won’t spoil it here, but I watched this without even knowing there was a rug pulling moment in it, but I realised pretty quickly there had to be one (and what it was) in order to explain what is going on. The problem is that once the reveal has happened you soon realise how preposterous the whole thing is. Owen’s always done a nice line in looking confused and I suspect he didn’t have to do much prep before each scene here in order to portray such an emotion; One look at the script should have been enough.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Promised a lot, but, thanks to the implausible screenplay, delivers very little. Rating: 3/10.