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An Intrusion

“An Intrusion” is a crime thriller about detectives, a deadly stalker, and dark secrets; it’s formulaic, but does the formula work?

AN INTRUSION landed on digital towards the tail end of last year (11/26/2021). Read on to find out if you should Rent it, Stream it, or Skip it.

I really don’t enjoy giving a lower grade to a movie, especially one starring Scout “Be Still My Heart” Taylor Compton (Rob Zombie’s Halloween) or the kid who kept trying to get laid and striking out in It Follows. Billy Boyd is also in this film for some reason, proving once again that having been in the wildly successful Lord of the Rings — which is now 18 years old if you can believe it — is no guarantee of future success in the industry.

It also didn’t help that his performance was completely hammy, and he kept putting the wrong emphasis on the word “baptize” (I know, how do you screw that up?); and it helped even less that he had a shite script to work with. But there you have it. Pippin, I hardly knew ye.

But I have to be honest, An Intrusion, written and directed by Nicholas Holland and produced by Gravitas Ventures, is a disappointing film that just left me depressed and wishing I’d watched something else.

The It Follows kid is Keir Gilchrist, whom you may also recognize from his lead role on the Netflix series Atypical. I only bring him up again because, unlike most of the other actors in this movie, Gilchrist actually has some serious chops — which begs the question why the hell was he wasted on a worthless, flat character in An Intrusion?

I haven’t been so disappointed since Samuel L. Jackson got eaten in the first act of Deep Blue Sea.

An Intrusion starts off in the same place this movie wants to keep its audience throughout most of the film: in the dark. Some mysterious baddie is tormenting a family consisting of a douchebag dad whose only emotion throughout the whole film is some shade or other of pissed off, a seemingly bipolar mom, and their cute but devoid of personality teenage daughter played by Angelina Danielle Cama — who honestly does the best she can with what she has to work with, which isn’t much.

You’ve seen this movie before, probably on an episode of CSI.

The twists are unsatisfying and contrived (not to mention at least partly predictable), the script is dull, and the film itself plods along at an uncertain pace like it can’t decide what it wants to be.

Compton is miscast but not bad as a police detective, and the rest of the supporting cast give serviceable performances as well. Too bad the movie doesn’t really take time to develop any of its characters.

The main problem with the film is its protagonist, who is impossible to like or identify with unless you’re a douchebag yourself, in which case you’ll still want the baddies to stick it to him because you’ll be intimately familiar with how much he deserves his comeuppance.

There’s no character development, no satisfying payoff, and no point to the ridiculous ending which seems devoid of a basic understanding of human psychology.

The soundtrack isn’t bad, and there is a fun club scene that takes you out of the depressing crime drama for a few precious minutes. But as the action revolves around an unlikable character mowing down the scenery in an even less likeable plot, you will find yourself looking forward to the Scout Taylor Compton scenes just to have something interesting to look at (namely, Laurie Strode dressed like a cop).

RENT IT, STREAM IT, OR SKIP IT?
SKIP IT. Do yourself a favor and skip this one, or you’ll be just as depressed as I am that Pippin from LORD OF THE RINGS is now phoning in performances in bad thrillers. It’s an intrusion into your precious time that you will never get back.

Overall Rating (Out of 5 Butterflies): 2

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