Intruders

Dir: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

2011

**

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 2011 horror Intruders is a clever idea poorly executed. A little boy in Spain finds himself terrorized by a ghostly demon named Hollow Face, due to his complete lack of facial features. Hollow Face follows his victim in order to steal his face, an idea suggested to be old Spanish folk-law although it is nothing of the sort. The film then switches to a little girl in England who is also haunted by Hollow Face after she finds a written story all about him hidden in an old oak tree. The similarities between the two haunting are that each child's parent believes their child, something rare in most horror films. Aside from that, they are two totally different films, one in English and one in Spanish. The link is explained in a twist ending, one that was totally unpredictable to the film's credit but only because it is somewhat unconvincing. There is a good level of intrigue within the film, I didn't like the conclusion at all but before this point there were a couple of genuinely spooky scenes I enjoyed with some fantastic imagery. The performances were strong but I do wonder whether Clive Owen was miscast. I really liked the inclusion of the church and they're attitude towards hauntings. Daniel Bruhl's character was underused, especially as he was one of the more interesting elements of the story. The two children, Izan Corchero and Ella Purnell are both pretty convincing as is Pilar Lopez de Ayala who plays the little boy's mother but Carice van Houten is fairly horrible as Owens wife, Ella's mother. To be fair, her character is fairly one dimensional with some pretty awful dialogue. For its competent horror scenes and special effects, Intruders let itself get too convoluted and is let down by a stale script and poor structure. The film lost its intensity fairly early on, to the point where the scary scenes were no longer that scary and the rest of the film was just a bit dull.