My quick rating – 4.1/10. Well, I gave Invader a shot and walked away feeling mostly underwhelmed, though slightly seasick thanks to the cinematography. The camera work here is downright dreadful. It’s like someone handed the DP a phone with a busted stabilizer and told them to “just vibe.” Constant shakiness, sloppy focus, and general disregard for basic framing made me wonder if this was supposed to be a found footage flick. It’s not. So, congratulations, Invader, you found a way to look worse than most student projects without even trying for that style.
The dialogue doesn’t fare much better. It often feels unfinished, like the cast was working off bullet points instead of an actual script. The first half of the movie is a slog, following Vero Maynez as she tries to make her way to her cousin’s house and then meanders around looking for her. Not exactly pulse-pounding stuff. Vero’s character didn’t help either, as she slips into “spoiled brat who can’t communicate” mode pretty quickly. Honestly, I wasn’t terribly concerned whether she made it out alive. That’s the luxury of fiction: I get to judge characters for being annoying without guilt. Luckily, her buddy Carlo (played by Colin Huerta) is at least somewhat likable.
The second half tries to crank up the fear factor, giving us a home invader who’s more Buffalo Bill than random Joe Swanberg. Apparently it wasn’t enough to have a deranged guy breaking into homes; he also had to dress up and prance around for that extra dash of Silence of the Lambs flavor. Sure, it’s creepy in concept, but it’s also a bit tired.
Speaking of Joe Swanberg, he actually plays the invader here, and credit where it’s due, he’s genuinely unsettling. The film’s minimal approach to explaining his motives (basically, he’s just evil for the sake of it) might have been the most realistic part, since plenty of real-life monsters don’t need elaborate reasons. Still, it felt like the movie leaned hard on that “isn’t it scary how random this is?” angle without building enough substance around it.
Keating does toss in one notably brutal kill, presumably to jolt the audience awake. It’s clearly there for shock value, and… well, it’s not all that shocking. The whole affair runs about 70 minutes, which sounds mercifully short until you realize how little happens, making it feel like a dragged-out PSA on America’s startling home invasion statistics (every 30 seconds, wouldn’t it be nice if that weren’t true? (Click HERE).
I can see what writer/director Mickey Keating was going for—an uncomfortable, stripped-down psychological horror. But with hollow characters, anemic plotting, and that nauseating camera work, Invader mostly just left me wanting something sturdier to hold onto, like a steady tripod.
