Also checked out the new suspense / domestic horror movie The Intruder. This is in that long of chain of movies where regular people are confronted with the evil of A) the nanny, B) the neighbor, C) the neighborhood cop, D) the ex boy/girlfriend, E) the boy next door, or F) whatever social connection you could possibly have.
For The Intruder, a young couple buy a very expensive house in Napa Valley… only to have the original owner kind of stick around and overstay his welcome. The neighbor is played with gleeful mania by Dennis Quaid who is clearly having fun. He uses that wicked and wide grin to great effect in a movie that otherwise takes itself very seriously. It’s as if the actors playing the young couple were given completely different direction than Quaid.
This… kind of makes the movie a mess. It can’t decide if its being campy or serious which means that it’s overdone STRINGS when a scary moment allegedly happens just seems misplaced. If this was meant to be camp, it’s not playing like it. If it’s meant to be scary, it’s not because it’s overdone and predictable. The movie really isn’t very good but, at the very least, I wasn’t bored and Quaid’s performance was enough to make it interesting.
But, yeah, in the long run it’s mostly a movie you can skip. There’s other, better (or at least campier) domestic horror flicks out there. This is one of the least bad of the bad ones though so, if you do wind up seeing it, I’d say there’s a chance you’ll be mildly entertained. Maybe not on purpose though!
Score: 72