Retro Review: The Intruders

Writer's Note: In honor of Miranda "iCarly" Cosgrove's 25th birthday- dude, I'm old!- here's a look back at her pseudo-horror flick The Intruders. This review was originally published on Facebook on July 9th, 2015. 

This is one of those horror movies that falls into the category of “is it or isn’t it a horror movie?”- if you know what I mean and I think that my fellow horror movie fans do. I’m not talking about a film like The Silence of the Lambs, where the filmmakers try and pull a fast one and say it’s a “psychological thriller” or what have you, and shout to the rafters that “it’s not a horror movie,” when it clearly is.

When one of your main characters cooks and eats people and the other is trying to make a suit out of human skin, that, my friend, is clearly a horror movie, and we don’t need to be told otherwise, no matter what you say to the contrary. The only reason filmmakers try that whole gambit is because they think they might win some prestige awards or the like- in that case, they were obviously right, so good for them. We horror fans know the real truth, though.

But no, I’m talking about movies like Dream House, House at the End of the Street, Silent House (why do all these movies have “house” in the title?) and Gone, movies that probably actually would be better described as “psychological thrillers.” As far as I can tell, the only reason they were marketed as horror was that the movie studios behind them realized they had mediocre films on their hands, so they were like, “let’s try and sell them to the horror crowd, they’ll watch anything.”

Sad to say, one of the unfortunate truths of the matter is that they are 100% right. I saw every one of those films. Not only that, I also saw dreck like Ouija, Annabelle and plenty more where that came from, even though I knew deep down they were most likely crap.

(Writer's Note #2: To be fair, I quite enjoyed the second installments of Ouija and Annabelle, which were vast improvements on their original installments.)

As much as I hate to say it, we horror fans are as much a part of the problem as the potential solution. After all, for every halfway deserving original horror that somehow managed to slip through the cracks and make it big on an indie level, a la The Babadook and It Follows, we practically throw our money at the screen for the aforementioned kind of crap based on board games, or remakes, reboots and/or sequels to familiar properties. It’s kind of sad, really. Horror fans are their own worst enemies.

I mean, sure, you could say, “Well I personally didn’t see that crap because I know better. I spend MY money on left-of-center original stuff like Headless and Spring and 'insert REAL horror movie title here'.” Well, bully for you. The fact remains that that stuff only tends to appeal to smaller, cult audiences- even if they are totally the BEST audiences, wink wink nudge nudge. 😜

Which brings us back to The Intruders. What to do with a film like this? It’s not a bad film. It’s well-acted, well executed, the main lead is likable- I mean, it’s freaking iCarly for God’s sake. Who doesn’t like her? (Just me? Okay, I accept that I am split down the middle between the tastes of a loner shut-in and a twelve-year-old girl. So, I like bad Disney and Nickelodeon shows and Charli XCX AND cult/horror movies and action flicks and the like equally, sue me.)

The Intruders tells the tale of Rose (Miranda Cosgrove, who some of you might know better from School of Rock), a teenage girl still reeling from the unexpected death of her mother, which has left her and her father (the always-welcome Donal Logue, of Sons of Anarchy and Gotham fame) shells of what they used to be. Her father has thrown himself into his work, while Rose moodily putters around their new house, obsessing over everything, which is not helped by the fact that she is loathe to take her meds.

When bizarre stuff starts to happen, coupled with the fact that a lot of local people seem inclined to keep their distance from her new house, she goes all Nancy Drew (yep- like her, too, haters) to try and figure out what’s really going on. But is it a ghost, or is it something more tangible? 

Might the seemingly shady neighbor (Tom Sizemore, Natural Born Killers) be up to something? Or the previous tenants of the house? Is that cute boy (Austin Butler, Arrow, The Carrie Diaries) that keeps coming around at unexpected times on the up-and-up or is he to be trusted? Or is she hallucinating things on account of being off her meds? And so on- you know the drill.
Like I said, this is one of those “horror” movies that isn’t really one, and I know that’s sort of a spoiler, but I think it’s actually better if you know that going in. I know I would have enjoyed the movies I mentioned earlier better if I’d known the truth instead of thinking it was flat-out horror going in because that was how it was marketed. To me, that’s a tease, and I don’t care for being teased.

I’m not saying that good films haven’t been made that adopted the whole “is it real or is it all in the lead protagonist’s head?” approach. They have. But when you blatantly promote something as horror and it isn’t, you’re kind of doing a disservice to real horror fans, who don’t care for being duped like that, and that pisses me off way more than a sub-par movie, you know?

So, yeah, so long as you know going in that this is, in fact, a psychological thriller in the Hitchcockian mode, with a healthy dose of Rear Window and something like Repulsion, then you should be fine. Just don’t go in expecting Martyrs or whatever, despite that fake-out of an opening that leads you to believe you might be heading into Girl Next Door-style torture porn territory. It’s not that.

Honestly, if you know who Cosgrove is, I can’t imagine anyone would expect that, anyway. Sure former Disney girl Lindsay Lohan took a stab at trashy horror with I Know Who Killed Me, but her career was already on the downswing by then as it was. Cosgrove’s isn’t, so she’s not going to do some insane power move into hardcore horror waters this early on, nor does she here.

All in all, a decent enough movie- just be aware that, as the saying goes: “It’s not a horror movie.” 😈👿👹