Move over, After! There’s a new movie here to take your crown as the current worst movie of the year. And that’s saying something, because After was truly terrible. But I’m not here to pile on that movie. I’m here for The Intruder in all its awfulness.
The basic premise is actually interesting enough. Michael Ealy and Meagan Good play Scott and Annie Howard, a married couple looking to buy a house. They want to move out of the city to start a family. Because what’s better than raising kids in the middle of the woods far away from the rest of society? Anyway, they decide to buy a house from a lonely, eccentric man, Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid). Charlie claims he will be moving to Florida to live with his daughter.
But Charlie doesn’t move to Florida. He keeps hanging around the house, cutting the grass, freaking out when any work is done that he deems unnecessary. And he predictably develops an obsession with Annie. This could have been a fun, decent movie. But poor Dennis Quaid is absolutely wasted in this role. He was campy and completely over the top. But it could have been fun had the surrounding material been anything resembling competent.
And Quaid’s performance is the only thing about the movie that even approaches halfway decent. But it just gets drowned out by everything else. And with that, let’s dive in. The worst thing about the movie is how incredibly stupid Scott and Annie are. And this is stupid as in unintelligent. As in they are not smart. They’re dumb. The decisions they make are astonishing in their level of stupidity.
This movie should have been about 10 minutes long. As soon as they meet Charlie, they should have run the other way. Everything about Charlie is a giant red flag. But do Scott and Annie take these signs seriously? No, of course they don’t. Annie especially is so naive, it’s hard to believe she made it this far into her adult life.
But as dumb as the characters are, the script doesn’t do them any favors. So many of the “twists” are blatantly obvious or foreshadowed. A movie like this needs tension and suspense in order to be effective. But the movie makes every effort to ensure it is completely devoid of both. You can see everything coming from a mile away.
Believe it or not, there’s even more I could get into. But at this point, that just seems unnecessary. But hey, let’s do it anyway, at least briefly. Not only do Scott and Annie lack serious social skills (i.e. missing the obvious warning signs about Charlie) they are financially reckless. They visit the house one time and that’s all it takes for them to decide to buy it. No realtor, no inspection, no appraisal, nothing. And on the drive back home, Scott says he’s going to see (and I’m paraphrasing here as I don’t remember the exact quote) “if the partners can swing it.”
The partners he’s referring to are those of the company where he works as a Creative Director. What do his business partners have to do with his decision to buy a new house? But okay, let’s roll with that for a second. If you need that kind of approval to buy a house, or to move money around as a paycheck advance or early bonus (just speculating) maybe you shouldn’t be buying that house?
And if that seems like nitpicking, you’re right. But that’s what you get when you make a movie this bad. Worst movie of the year so far and it will be a thrilling race to the finish to see if it can hold off any upcoming contenders.
Where to follow:
Personal: Twitter @MattHambidge, Instagram @matthambidge
News From The Couch: Twitter @NFTCouch, Instagram @newsfromthecouch
