The Intruder

My preferred method of choosing which movies to see based on the trailer has frequently backfired on me this year!  Friday night I went to see The Intruder because the trailer made it look like an interesting and atmospheric psychological thriller.  Unfortunately, it is a total mess.  Scott Russell (Michael Ealy), an up and coming San Francisco ad executive, and his wife Annie (Meagan Good) decide to leave the city in favor of finding their dream home in Napa Valley.  Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid) tells the couple that he is selling his house to go live with his daughter in Florida but he can't seem to leave and starts dropping by at inconvenient times.  He spies on the new inhabitants and yells at them when they make alterations to the house.  Scott is unnerved by Charlie's continual presence but Annie feels sorry for him and frequently invites him in (this character is so mind-numbingly stupid that I wanted to scream).  Charlie eventually breaks into the house to attack Annie provoking a confrontation with Scott.  The script is very derivative and there is one scene in particular which mimics another well-known scene from a much better horror film that had the audience hooting with laughter (not the intended reaction).  There is absolutely no suspense, even with the jump scares, because Charlie is creepy from the moment we meet him and it is absolutely incredulous that Scott and Annie can't see this.  Not only are the characters incredibly stupid but they behave illogically, especially in the final sequence which contradicts everything we have learned about about Scott's character (and prompted more laughter).  Ealy and Good try hard with the material they are given but they don't have a lot of chemistry.  Quaid is so completely over the top as the villain that, again, I laughed at some of his facial expressions.  All of the other actors are abysmal, especially Joseph Sikora who plays Scott's best friend.  Finally, there are quite a few glaring continuity issues which point to lazy filmmaking (did anyone view this movie before it was released?).  This is not even as good as the late night movies found on Lifetime and I recommend giving it a miss.