Dennis Quaid Stalks Homeowners in Dopey Thriller

Home invasion thrillers have given us loads of maniacal villains hellbent on terrorizing helpless residents of cavernous homes. Whether they’re pushed by dementia or greed (or each), these villains pillage, plunder, and depart the scene a massacre.

Rarely are they provoked by a former house owner’s mundane want to nonetheless occupy the residence, as it’s for Dennis Quaid’s vein-popping Charlie Peck in director Deon Taylor’s “The Intruder.”

In director Jung Huh’s 2013 movie, “Hide and Seek,” the unhinged former renter (Mi-seon Jeon) is no less than pushed to insanity attributable to a visceral mixture of grief and poverty. But Charlie is nothing greater than a person who’s mad that he misplaced his cash after a couple of unhealthy enterprise offers and had to surrender his gigantic Napa Valley dwelling (the one the place he killed his spouse, thoughts you) to a profitable younger married couple: Annie (Meagan Good, “Shazam!”) and Scott Russell (Michael Ealy, “Think Like a Man”). Charlie will get an enormous windfall after they purchase his dwelling, which ought to get him out of debt. But as a substitute of leaving, he lingers on their new property — unbeknownst to Annie and Scott — proper beneath them of their basement.

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The reality about Charlie’s spouse, in fact, comes later within the movie when issues are hitting the fan, however there’s one thing creepy about him proper from the start. Despite telling the brand new owners that his daughter has a bed room ready for him in Florida, Charlie continues to “drop by” for days — or is it weeks? Time is a bit fuzzy within the movie.

Even extra curious is the ungrounded friendship between Charlie and Annie. Annie feels unhealthy for him and his attachment to his longtime dwelling. Meanwhile, Scott finds Charlie’s omnipresence creepy (it very a lot is) and shoos him away so he can spend some alone time together with his spouse and begin a household.

The different half that doesn’t make a complete lot of sense within the half-baked screenplay by David Loughery (“Lakeview Terrace,” “Obsessed”)? Annie and Scott appear so in love and might’t hold their palms off one another, but it’s hinted that Scott had an affair and, ever since, Annie hasn’t totally trusted him. If Annie was so insecure about their relationship (a lot in order that she’s set off when Charlie sends her a textual content as a substitute of calling her), then why would she even take into account shopping for a house and having a child with him? Sure, it occurs, however that historical past isn’t defined properly within the film in any respect. And as a result of we don’t know Annie and Scott exterior of this scary second of their relationship, as Charlie baits and terrorizes them, this aspect of their relationship simply dangles.

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Things are made worse by the truth that Charlie convinces himself in his twisted thoughts that Annie might presumably change his deceased spouse as a result of her relationship with Scott is on the rocks after the entire textual content debacle and Annie exhibits him extra consideration than Scott does. It’s delusional. Part of Charlie’s creepiness could possibly be attributed to grief over his spouse, if it wasn’t for the truth that he truly killed her. Oh, and his daughter in Florida hates him too as a result of she is aware of he’s a assassin.

Why he wouldn’t need to flee this dwelling and take his new cash distant with him is rarely defined. The indisputable fact that he continues to chop their garden and creepily watch them have intercourse at evening, proper earlier than he throws Scott over his personal banister and ties Annie to a bedpost, seemingly with none concern of police intervention, is an amazing degree of mediocre-old-white-guy entitlement.

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“The Intruder” rings extremely hole. Even the cinematography,…