Intruders is a psychological horror/thriller, a slow burner that has two seemingly separate stories running concurrently but share a common theme; they both center around a haunting apparition experienced by a child.

The first story takes place in Spain where a young boy appears to be under threat from a faceless apparition intent on bursting into the boy’s bedroom.  The second takes place in London where the daughter of city construction worker Clive Owen is being menaced by an unseen stranger lurking in the dark corners of her bedroom determined to spring out and grab her.  In both stories it’s a child haunted by the same apparition, a faceless someone or something in a hood, referred to as Hollow Face, trying to grab a child.  The intriguing part is that this apparition is being seen in two countries by two children.

My theory as to how the two stories were connected came about halfway through the film and proved to be right.  It’s a good twist – to be honest, it’s the only interesting aspect of the film – and while I won’t indulge in a reveal and cause a major plot spoiler, I’m also guessing there’ll be many who’ll catch the connection at an even earlier stage, and once you’ve worked things out, there’s not much left to enjoy.

Clive Owen is a fine actor, but somehow here he doesn’t feel right, and it’s not his fault.  At no point does the film ever live up to its early promises – it’s never really exciting and it’s certainly not scary – and with a thriller moving as slowly as this, never delivering the unnerving goods that you keep hoping will eventually come, Intruders ends up looking more like an art house version of a ghost story rather than the edge-of-your-seat mystery thriller that it wants to be.

Part of the problem – and it’s a big problem – is that the monster, Hollow Face, is ineffectual and feels like something we may have seen before.  It’s a villain in a hoodie with bony fingers.  In the 2000 thriller Unbreakable when M. Night Shyamalan was still making interesting films, Bruce Willis in similar hoodie garb looked far more menacing, and he was the hero. The idea of something hiding in the shadows of your bedroom or maybe even under the bed, waiting to reach out and grab, will always be a scary notion, and when a film can successfully tap into this unsettling fear then almost everyone in the theatre should relate and react, but Intruders pulls its punches, and with a finale where the answers aren’t half as interesting as the ones you were hoping for, the film fails to thrill.

 MPAA Rating:  R       Length:  100 Minutes       Overall Rating:  5  (out of 10)