The Intruder

Yet another example of the "psychopathic stalker" subgenre that was popular in the early 1990s, this thriller is thoroughly mechanical and laughable, almost totally lacking in any kind of humanity. The Intruder thankfully isn't as offensive as director Deon Taylor's last movie, Traffik, which tried to combine exploitation filmmaking with message-mongering, but it's still empty and lifeless. Weirdly, it's similar in some ways to Jordan Peele's Us, but without that movie's cleverness. Rather, the screenplay for The Intruder is a computer-like contraption that simply moves pieces from one place to another to make things happen. The characters, and the actors stuck playing the roles, have little choice but to follow along.

If the main characters agree or disagree, they're only doing so because the plot requires them to at that precise moment. They have no inner life -- and, other than occasionally sitting down for a meal, they never seem to actually do anything. Quaid's Charlie switches gears radically from a polite character to a savage, grunting monster with nothing in between; there's no hint of what he's actually like or where all this might have come from. Good is the only thing worth seeing in The Intruder. As with her brief role in Shazam!, she brings a warm kindness and humanity to her character, as well as humor and toughness, that somehow still come through as she makes genuine attempts to connect with Charlie. It's a shame the movie couldn't have been worthy of her talents.