The Intruder movie review: A sloppy invasion film packed with unintentionally hilarious moments

Nestled firmly in the ‘what in the world did I just watch’ genre, The Intruder is a film that confounds, annoys and more often than not, induces unintentionally hilarious moments that make you wonder which of the hundreds of people who worked on this film thought this was a good idea. [caption id=“attachment_6613781” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from the Intruder. Image via Twitter/@BTLRadioShow[/caption] You could guess by the title of course, that this is a home invasion movie. The standard issue tropes are all there – good looking couple Scott (Michael Ealy) and Annie (Meagan Good) move into a beautiful new home. There’s a creepy person, Charlie (Dennis Quaid) in this case raising a few eyebrows with the way he does things and hangs around the house. And naturally, Charlie turns out to be more than just a stalker, and our hero couple need to find a way to overpower him. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the home invasion setup – films like The Strangers, You’re Next, and the recent Us proved you could do crazy things within the genre and make things interesting. The Intruder, however makes absolutely no effort to do or say anything new about the setup. The plot painfully follows a horde of clichés to the point of banging you on the head for daring to continue watching the film. It’s quite astonishing really, to simply sit back and watch the events on the screen unfold, as they sloppily mash against one another with the artistry of donkey show. Every time the film presents a situation where you think either the protagonist or the antagonist would do something fun to surprise you, you just end up being knocked on the gonads and are offered a resolution that is jaw-droppingly hackneyed. For instance, the first thing one expects in a film about a stalker is a basement – and the film leads you to believe that the creepy uncle in the film would clearly be a little less predictable than that – but then lo behold – there is indeed a basement, and nothing else. This is not even a genre film where the stalker does something truly horrifying to shock you – even the insanity depicted in the film is so unimaginative it makes you want to throw your shoes at the screen. It is no surprise that this film was dumped on the backend of the Endgame release, because it is clear that the filmmakers realised that they had a turkey on their hands. It is unclear, however, whether this film even has a shelf life on streaming platforms because of its cosmically low quality. It is ironic that the supposedly smart aspect of the film – a white American stalking and being antagonistic to a black couple is inserted in a movie that is fit for the Fox News kool aid guzzling white folks without a single functioning critical membrane in their heads. The only absolutely crystal clear element in the film is the fact that Dennis Quaid needed a quick paycheck and did this film, probably for the second time in his career after Jaws 3D.