Invader – Movie Review (2/5)

INVADER is a new Home Invasion Horror Movie featuring a very memorable villain – solely due to his actions. We’re not meant to know him, just what he does. A strong concept that loses on execution. Read our full Invader (2024) movie review here!

INVADER (2024) is a horror movie with a home invasion plot. This particular criminal is both extremely violent and disgusting. He’s all about mayhem and chaos. His actions speak louder than any words, which is why it makes sense that he never really speaks.

The villain is portrayed by Joe Swanberg and the opening scene lets us know what he’s capable of. Or rather, what seems to be the sole purpose of his existence; To ruin everything he comes into contact with. The runtime is just 1 hour and 8 minutes, which is a bonus as it evolves.

Continue reading our Invader (2024) movie review below. Find it in select theaters from February 21, 2025.

A simple yet efficient premise

With Invader, we meet the title character (Joe Swanberg) first, before moving on to the actual main protagonist. Before we ever meet Ana (newcomer Vero Maynez), we have a feeling that things will not turn out well for her.

This is both due to her being Hispanic – which isn’t fun in the US right now – and because we’ve already seen Joe Swanberg in action as the bad guy.

Ana is a long way from home, but also clearly came from the airport with her baggage tags still on her suitcase, so this isn’t a political story in that sense. She’s simply in a Chicago suburb to visit her cousin Camila.

Once she arrives on her delayed bus to this suburb, it’s the middle of the night, and Ana cannot get a hold of Camila or any other local family members. Nighttime in this area is terrifying and despite Ana being a tough (and smart) young woman, she’s clearly desperate to get safe.

By chance, she meets Carlo (Colin Huerta), who is a co-worker of Camila. He’s also surprised that Camila didn’t come to work and go with Ana to Camila’s house. If things were bad before, it’s nothing compared to what they’re about to encounter.

A strong beginning but loses momentum

I absolutely adored the core concept of Invader as a horror movie. Also, the villain was perfect exactly as this nearly faceless character that we get to know purely through his actions. As the saying goes “Actions speak louder than words” and the invader is loud.

Unfortunately, the final act of Invader left a lot to be desired.

It’s the classic Sidney Prescott horror movie commentary from Scream about going up the stairs when you should be going out the front door.

I’m oversimplifying, but the poor choices of one character in particular (which is obviously due to how they’re written) ruined a lot of the overall experience for me.

Borderline motion sickness-inducing

Being from Denmark, the Dogma-style of filmmaking with a focus on natural light and a handheld camera should be my jam. And it is, actually, but only to a point. One of my pet peeves is when a handheld camera is all over the place.

I recognize that a handheld camera can help to underline the chaos and confusion. However, and this is key, it can also result in near-motion sickness when taken too far.

At several points during its short runtime of just 68 minutes, Invader takes it way too far. So while my main issue with the movie has to do with the evolution of the story, I also really found myself irritated by the choices in cinematography.

Still, the production quality and acting worked perfectly (especially from Vero Maynez and Joe Swanberg), which is why it is still a movie I recommend checking out. My overall rating of just 2 out of 5 does not indicate this, so I wanted to point out that it does have a lot of good.

That final act just ruined quite a lot for me – as did the shaky handheld camera, but that alone wouldn’t have been (that much!) of an issue.

Watch Invader in Select Theaters now!

Invader comes from writer and director Mickey Keating (Offseason) with genre movie filmmaker and producer Joe Swanberg as both a star and producer. Invader is described as a “lean, mean jolt of unsettling home invasion horror” and I can certainly get behind that description.

Well, for the most part.

It has a very unfortunate tendency to suddenly lean into every horror movie trope regarding victims making all the wrong choices. Based on what we’ve seen from the characters up until the final act, it’s a shame.

Instead, it could’ve continued a strong arc of delivering on hyper-realistic violent behavior from its bad guy, while the “average” people react as you’d expect. Also, there’s something about the impact of an injury that seems to go from clearly fatal to a simple flesh wound.

It insults viewers and really irritated me much more than I expected. Especially as I had enjoyed Invader much more than I expected. It was a rollercoaster ride of a nightmare that ended with a whimper rather than a bang.

Do stick around for the end credits though.

Invader opens in Select Theaters starting February 21, 2025. A digital release is coming just over a month later on March 25, 2025.

Details

Director: Mickey Keating
Writer: Mickey Keating
Cast: Joe Swanberg, Vero Maynez, Colin Huerta, Ruby Vallejo