‘The Intruder’ Review
Stars: Meagan Good, Dennis Quaid, Michael Ealy, Erica Cerra, Joseph Sikora, Alvina August, Debs Howard, Lili Sepe, Lee Shorten, Carolyn Anderson, Caroline Muthoni Muita, Kurt Evans | Written by David Loughery | Directed by Deon Taylor
The Intruder, directed by Deon Taylor, is the latest conventional haunted house thriller tale that has a big bark but no bite. Denis Quaid stars as Charlie Peck, who sells his property to Annie and Scott Russell, played by Meagan Good and Michael Ealy, and slowly becomes obsessed with the couple. Begins to blur the lines of a psychopath and friendly neighbour.
Taylor’s recent effort had firm hopes to impress with a haunting trailer that wonderfully captured the dread and terror that such a thriller film should provoke. It is a rather tragic set of events that proceed the Sony logo, however, as the next one hundred and fifteen-minutes result in in a dull and often disastrous stifled thriller, that does not have an original bone in its body. Without sounding utterly damning, The Intruder is absolute trash. That is not necessarily a downfall or criticism as audiences can still have exciting, enjoyable trash if it is done well. Sadly, The Intruder is not remotely intriguing or compelling to even suffice as simplistic trash with a repetitive conventional horror that results in a disaster.
Taylor’s film is bottom of the barrel stuff. It manages to take a tried and tested narrative and runs into the wall of originality head first. `With as much progressive, inciting writing possible within this world, the screenplay from David Loughery writes such a bland disposable piece of plotting imaginable. There are various circumstances and avenues this film could take, but with each olive branch decides to take the path well-travelled, rinse and repeat every time. It becomes a tiresome wreck before long, and the audience is left to brave each of the intended dramatic sequences until the flat climax occurs.
The Intruder cannot even stifle up a sign of courage to inject a twist or palpable indecision to the plot, of which could have been so easily executed if it was brave enough to let go of wanting to tread the same conventional path. Made more frustrating is the film toys with the idea of including weight and layers to the characters with some form of substance that lingers in the background surrounding their marriage infidelities, but the film cannot muster any idea of exploration and fails to provoke a single second of entertainment.
Much delayed from its original May 10th release date,The Intruder is [finally] on limited release across the UK now.
