What if you were in a home invasion movie and didn’t realize it? That seems to be the awkward and uncomfortable premise of Who Invited Them… a movie that trades on our civility to drag a simple story out until you want to start snapping necks.

The flick is about a married couple having a housewarming party where nobody really wants to be there. When the party breaks up early, they discover one couple remains… and they don’t want to leave. But that’s ok… that’s what a nightcap is for. And then they really don’t want to leave… and they don’t want to leave some more.

This is an introverts nightmare. This is what you get when your inbred politeness and/or your narcistic demand to be included and respected is preyed upon. It’s an interesting take on the home invasion sub-genre and I applaud it for finding a new angle.

It might have helped if anyone in the film was a good person. The husband is definitely insufferable and you really want to put him in a Sims pool and delete the ladder. The wife is a little better but maybe she should just leave him instead of picking at him for being the prick he is. My point is, this premise might have worked better with genuinely friendly and nice people.

I loved the ending of the film… it gets pretty suspenseful and actually takes some kind of random twists that I didn’t see coming. The boiling absurdity boils over and it gets darkly funny.

I think this is a neat and solid film that doesn’t hit quite as hard as they want it to. And its a little too stretched thin for its premise. But when it gets where it’s going, it works. And, hey, it’s different.

Score: 79