Invader

by Mike McGranaghan

Invader is not a typical home invasion thriller. For starters, the invasion has already taken place when the movie begins. Most films of this sort have some kind of build-up wherein we meet the characters, see the villain(s) getting closer, and witness the violence that’s unleashed. This one scraps all the intro stuff and gets right to the heart of things, opening with a lengthy scene of the bad guy utterly trashing the home he’s just barged into.

Then we jump to Ana (Vero Maynez), who is fresh off the bus in the Chicago suburbs, where she’s come to visit her cousin Camila. But Camila doesn’t show up and isn’t answering her phone. Concerned, Ana begins to make her way to Camila’s house on foot. She encounters a co-worker of her cousin’s, Carlo (Colin Huerta), who has concerns of his own. He agrees to accompany her. What happens next is utterly chilling.

Rather than having a formal plot, Invader simply has this scenario, which we watch unfold over the course of 70 brisk minutes. Very few films could succeed without the usual story and character development. Director Mickey Keating (Darling) has a knack for staging, though. Everything that happens is shot with a jittery handheld camera. This has the effect of making it feel like the events are actually happening and that a documentary crew is somehow there to film it. The events depicted have a raw, authentic quality that sucks you in, despite not really knowing who Ana is or what the intruder’s motivations are.

When you stop and think about it, no quality could be more important in a home invasion thriller. Terror from this subgenre is born from making the audience imagine the horrific events onscreen could theoretically happen to us. The verité approach maximizes that. Maynez and Huerta give performances that fit beautifully within that aesthetic. They never seem like actors.

Invader ends with a real bang, giving us a haunting final image that might just stay lodged in your head for a while. For whatever the movie lacks in traditional structure, it more than makes up for in suspense. That short running time proves to be an unexpected benefit because it makes every minute feel urgent.

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