Released without fanfare in just over 30 theatres last spring, Intruders never had the chance to find an audience before its run came to a quiet and rapid close. A criminal injustice because this is an elegant, suspenseful, and thoughtful horror film by the gifted Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later). Set in England and Spain, the film focuses on two children haunted by a hollow-faced and malevolent phantom: is he just a nightmare, or does he pose a genuine threat? The two children's lives seem at first to have nothing in common (different countries, different languages, perhaps even different eras).

Clive Owen is convincing and intense as the frustrated father of the English girl, a turn reminiscent of his performance in last year's Trust (a father whose sense of masculine purpose is challenged by his inability to protect his loved ones), but it is 15-year-old Ella Purnell as his daughter who delivers the film's finest and most nuanced performance. Last seen playing Keira Knightley's character as a child in Never Let Me Go, this is an up-and-coming performer with a hypnotic and unusual presence and a sophistication beyond her years.

The film has a handful of minor blemishes--the scenes in Spain, though interesting, tend to play as an afterthought and could use a shade more substance--but otherwise steps right in almost each conceivable way. Traditional, slow-burning suspense is favored over extreme violence and, in a refreshing change of pace, artificial scares in which a sharp, thunderous musical cue underlines, say, a cat leaping into the frame. There are no such moments in Intruders. The twist ending is logical, surprising, and enhances the film.

A-

I'll give the film credit. It tries something different from most horror films. Instead of jump scares it tries to be a nightmare. It tries to go for psychological horror. But you notice how I used the word "tries" in the three previous sentences? That's because it doesn't work. It doesn't work because you have to buy into both it's psychological mambo jumbo and that an adult wouldn't remember that his father tried to kidnap him. Repressed memories I get, but the fact that for at least thirty years he remembered that event as being attacked by a monster, you'd think at around 13 (if he was slow) if not in his twenties (if he's retarded) he probably would've figured out that it wasn't in fact a faceless boogeyman that attacked him.

I know the movies is going for some sort of metaphor here, but it has to be backed up by a certain sort of logic. Intruders is anything but logical. It would've been easier to ignore though if this was in anyway scary or suspenseful. I found myself mostly bored by the end.

** (C)

Intruders

Well, that wasn't scary. I've wanted to see Intruders for a while now, and I finally got to see it tonight, but it just wasn't what I expected at all. It seems that the medium of film is unable to accurately portray the fear of the boogeyman, which is essentially who Hollowface is. While this is miles better than 2005's Boogeyman, it's only better because of better use of music, the ability to build suspense and Clive Owen's presence.

I don't find anything particularly scary about a CGI monster (which is what the Spanish Hollowface was). A film like this relies heavily on scaring its audience, and if it can't do that, then it's failed. I think that Hollowface could have been one of the horror greats along with Michael Myers, Ghostface and the sailor from I Know What You Did Last Summer, but the way this film utilised the character made him redundant because he's only known to two people and those two people are now free of his fear. I also couldn't take to the mother and daughter. The daughter, Ella Purnell, is a bad actress, plain and simple, and if she's to make it she needs acting classes. The mother was just directed badly by Fresnadillo - she acted like a mute distant cousin for most of the film.

Perhaps I just expected too much from the trailers that I saw. If you want to see Clive Owen as a concerned parent, check out Trust, it's much better than this attempt at horror.

C

I hated the twist in this.

I highly disagree with you, Algren, regarding Purnell. She gives one of the best child performances in recent memory here, in my opinion.

I continue to dig this film. It nicely considers inherited domestic trauma via fairy-tale infused horror.

Watch the first scene she's in again (in the garden with grandpa and grandma). It's all so wooden and clearly planned. That first scene was when my opinion was formed. She's unmemorable from there on. The Spanish kiddie did a better job, in my opinion - he acted like a child.

I really wanted to love this film too. I'd been anticipating it for what seemed like a long while. I'm disappointed, and hurt, so I'm grieving now.

Reflecting after seeing this last night, I think this was made for teenagers or children. I imagine it would really hit the spot if I were a teenager. The worst thing about the movie was the shaky-cam "fight" sequences in the girls' bedroom. I couldn't really tell what was going on.