For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - The Intruders
The Impression:
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was the man behind iffy zombie
sequel 28 Weeks Later and though I saw that film, I
can remember nothing about it. Intruders, from
trailer alone, seems to be some sort of boogey-man horror
film with small children in it. I’m wary of small children.
The Reality:
Two-thirds of the way through Intruders I was
overcome with a feeling that was some where between a nap
and a shrug. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo made some waves with
his sequel to 28 Days Later and it feels like in the
wake of that film he wanted to make sure that he got one
passion project off the ground before being sucked back in
to the void of remakes and follow-ups. Clive Owen plays John
Farrow, the father of Mia (Ella Purnell) a little girl who
stumbles across a scrap of a story, and is suddenly haunted
by a terrible hooded being. Somewhere else, a little boy is
haunted by the same looming figure. It sounds vague in
description, but it plays even vaguer on screen. Fresnadillo
spends most of his film hiding the "big" twist, and in doing
so he fails to advance his stories in any meaningful way.
What derails the film the most is that the "villain" of the
piece exists throughout the film in a sort of grey area.
It’s supposed to be a physical representation of childhood
fear but it’s also supposed to be the physical
representation of nightmares as well as a shadow lurking
creature that wants to steal people’s mouths. It’s a lot of
things, and none of these things add up to much. By the time
the big reveal of what this creature actually is occurs
(with the tiniest of whimpers) we’ve slogged through almost
two hours of dual family drama and poorly broadcast
suspense. No ending, no matter what secrets it lets out of
the bag, can make up for that.
The Lesson:
When making passion projects, make sure your passions are
something people are actually going to care about.
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